Love Me Again
by frostygossamer
Summary: Sam said yes; Dean said no. Four years after the Apocalypse actually went down, Dean and a few other survivors exist in the ruins of Detroit. This is a story about forgiveness. Post-Apocalypse AU. Mention of possible past dub-con, schmoopy soft wincest. COMPLETE
1. Detroit

Summary: Sam said yes; Dean said no. Four years after the Apocalypse actually went down, Dean and a few other survivors exist in the ruins of Detroit. This is a story about forgiveness. Post-Apocalypse AU. Mention of possible past dub-con, schmoopy soft wincest.

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A/N: This is an AU branching off from Season 5 before 'The End' and is set four years after the Apocalypse was NOT averted. It was over and done relatively quickly, not everyone died but human civilization was trashed. Lucifer won the war and is now on Earth running everything with his demon army. The few survivors of the human race are pretty much disregarded. Sam's meatsuit WAS possessed by Lucifer but his soul did not experience the Cage so he's a little more together. However, bereft of his brother, Dean is quietly broken inside.

Warnings: Suggestion of possible past dub-con with strangers, schmoopy soft wincest, happy ending.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, its fandom, its characters or anything connected to them. I do not make money or profit in any way from this story.

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Love Me Again (Part 1: Detroit) by frostygossamer

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The ex-hunter gave the generator a final good hard kick and it spluttered reluctantly into life. He snorted and wiped his oily hands on a rag that might once have been torn from some designer party dress. It was now performing a much more useful function.

"Well that's fixed. Kinda," he told the squatter, who was looking on hopefully.

Perhaps the former wearer of the designer frock, the skin-and-bones woman stood there shivering with a small, cold child clinging to her thin legs for warmth.

"Thanks. Thanks a lot, Dean. We were getting scared we were gonna freeze. Weren't we, sweetie?"

The little girl nodded, sagely. "Uh-huh," she murmured, agreeing with her mother.

Dean smiled and tousled the child's head. "You'll be OK now. While the fuel holds out anyways."

The woman tried to press a can of lunch meat in his hand. Dean shook his head.

"Can't take that. Keep it for the kid."

The woman grinned. "Thanks. Dunno what we woulda done without you."

Dean left the squat with mixed feelings, glad he was able to use his mechanic's skills to help, but sorry he couldn't do more. He made his way back through the deserted streets toward the Detroit office building where he had made his home for the past few years.

He moved quietly through the trash and burned-out vehicles, trying not to attract any unwanted attention. There were still occasional demon patrols in the area, but they were getting rarer. Lucifer and his army had bigger fish to fry running everything. Currently, Dean had more to fear from human drifters, deranged and desperate.

There were still plenty of people scraping by in the city if you knew where to look. You would never have guessed it though, moving through the decaying blocks of looted stores downtown. They lived like shadows in ruined buildings, mostly underground.

Wayward as always, Dean lived on the roof.

~o~

Dean had set up house on the top floor of one of the many abandoned office towers in the centre of town. As he slogged up the stairs, he once again questioned his wisdom for camping out in the penthouse of a tall building with no working elevator.

When he reached his floor, he had to carefully negotiate the several traps that protected the entrance to the rooms he occupied. The traps helped to deter the few vagrants who still bothered to wander the city looking for almost nonexistent food supplies and fuel. They wouldn't keep out demons anymore, but Dean really couldn't summon up the interest to give a damn.

He would actually have relished a chance to get into something with a couple fuglies once in a while, but they seemed to have enough on their plates ruling three worlds without bothering with has-beens like Dean Winchester. The Apocalypse had been over a long time. Dean and the few fellow members of the human resistance who had survived taking down Niveus Pharmaceuticals were old news.

Click, click, clunk. Dean shut himself in for the night, steel bars and heavy padlocks sealing out the darkness.

The inside of Dean's place was sparsely furnished with a couple desks and random chairs rescued from the other offices in the building. A large lockable metal file cabinet, chained to the wall, contained his meagre and precious supply of canned goods. Some he had scavenged and some he had taken in payment for his repair work. There was a small room in back that he used as a storeroom, but the main office was where he ate and slept.

In a defensible corner of the main room he had hauled an impressive three-seater, deep leather couch from the foyer and made up a semi-comfortable bed with some thin blankets and old dust sheets he had found in the janitor's closet. That was where he lay down to sleep, when the bad dreams didn't keep him awake.

Dean lit the camp stove he had rescued from a looted sporting goods store, with the flint gizmo he had improvised when the supply of matches and lighter fuel ran out. Then he put on his small teakettle to boil himself a cup of drinkable water. The office building he lived in did boast one ancient emergency generator. But they could only manage fitful power when someone could get their hands on the fuel. That someone was usually Dean. Right now the system was dead.

He unlocked his cabinet and measured out a precise spoonful of coffee. Last week he had helped an itinerant biker get mobile again and the guy had paid him with an almost half-full pack of beans. It sure wasn't the freshly brewed quality java Dean had been used to, but it smelled wonderful all the same.

He took his mug of coffee out on his balcony to savour it there. His 'balcony' was a window washer's cradle that Dean has secured outside his floor to prevent unauthorized ingress from below. From that vantage point, Dean could see far over the ravaged city. It wasn't a pretty sight.

About four miles away, as the crow flew, stood the ugly edifice that served as the demon headquarters for the district. By day it seemed innocent enough, blending in with the remains of shattered office blocks around it. You might have imagined nothing worse than administrative paper-pushing took place inside such a gray, faceless construction. But only if you hadn't heard what went on in the basement.

Dean shook his head sadly. "I know, Sammy."

He could almost hear his brother's nerdy observation on the sight before him. It was a shame about Sam. Dean couldn't bring himself to go beyond that thought anymore.

~o~

Four years had passed since Sam had betrayed the elder Winchester by sneaking off like some big-ass weasel to go to Detroit and say yes to Lucifer. The damn fool had figured he could save the world from the Apocalypse all by his idiot self. The stupid jerk!

Dean rolled over in his couch bed and scraped his hands through his hair. Sleep was evading him again. Memories of his little brother and the events leading up to him sacrificing his fool self for mankind never seemed to want to leave Dean alone in the dark hours of night.

He guessed insomnia was probably his penance for continuing to say 'Hell No!' to Michael right to the end. Sometimes Dean wished he had simply given in and gone with the angelic plan. That way, at least he wouldn't have had to go on with his pointless existence on Earth. At least he would have been with his Sam.

He used to feel angry and betrayed. He used to curse Sam and the whole self-righteous angelic host. But, after all this time, he simply didn't have the energy left to feel a damn thing.

~o~

Of course, it hadn't taken four years to get to this place. As it happens, it hadn't even taken one.

The Apocalypse had gone down, exactly as promised. But it hadn't been like they had expected. Sure the sky had become a sea of crimson flame and monsters had stalked the Earth, to begin with. Then there had followed a season of fire and brimstone below and bloody war in the heavens. Many, many had died. Humans, angels, demons, pretty much fuglies of every race, had been decimated.

Soon Lucifer had gotten bored with the everyday mayhem and instead instituted a military rule with himself as the new Emperor of the Three Kingdoms. Platoons of demons had marched the streets mopping up opposition with punitive measures, cold-blooded and peremptory. Sometimes they still did. Terrified people had fled their homes and hidden in cellars, basements and rat holes in the dirt. Some were still down there.

What was left of Team Free Will had quickly fallen apart, blown to the four winds by disaster after ineluctable disaster. Dean had lost so many friends, and he had no idea where any survivors might have wound up. He himself had spent a couple years being shifted around the country on a sort of underground railway, as no doubt were many others: hunters, fighters, leaders, preachers, all sorts.

Then, when it looked like there would be nothing left of mankind but a smoking pyre, things had suddenly chilled right down. Hostilities had ceased. Death stats had topped out. Everything had ground to a creaking halt. Now there was only typical post-war disintegration: food shortages, fuel shortages, disease and despair.

When the bloody whirligig had stopped, Dean had found himself in Michigan. Ironic, seeing as Detroit was the city where his brother had said yes to Lucifer and let Dean down big time. And he had wound up living without enthusiasm on the top floor of an abandoned office block in Motown, along with a ragtag rabble of haunted souls.

He scavenged for food, clothing and fuel. Anything. He bartered for his living, using his self-taught skills as a mechanic to keep other people's old rattletraps, generators and assorted machinery ticking over. He was barely scraping a life, and he was living largely to spite THEM because, honestly, he had lost all hope.

While all this was going down, he tried not to see his brother's face plastered everyplace on billboards and TV screens, or hear his voice on the crackling radio, issuing Lucifer's infernal agitprop and laying down his devilish decrees. Gleeful. Evil. Not Sam.

Dean KNEW his beloved brother was gone, long gone, lost forever the moment he agreed to be part of the archangels' internecine master plan. But Lucifer wearing him like a fright mask hurt more than his mind could deal with. So he had just... stopped hurting.

Then one day Lucifer had made an appearance in a new meatsuit, some handsome rock-jawed Nordic Apollo created especially for his purpose. Dean was forced to conclude that what was left of his brother, the husk of Sam, was gone for sure. Dumped out, as it were, with the garbage. That final realization had Dean letting fall a solitary, bitter tear. It was his last.

Dean Winchester's heart was totally numb.

~o~

When Dean dragged himself out of bed, early the next morning, a couple of raggedy birds were sitting on his makeshift balcony looking hopeful. Avian behaviour didn't seem to have yet accommodated the fact that humans were no longer the providers they once were.

Sometimes he would spare a handful of crumbs so he could watch them enjoy something he no longer found any joy in. Life.

Gone were the happier times of delicious bacon cheeseburgers and luscious apple pie. Dean got by, food-wise, but he was so lean these days that his clothes hung loose on him. Anyways, if someone had offered him a prime beefsteak he wouldn't have been able to taste it for the bile in his system.

He rapped on the window glass, scaring the hungry vermin away.

"Yeah, go on! Get outta here!" he snapped. "We don't have little enough without you coming around here panhandling? Feathery freakin' douchebags. Nothing for you in the city."

He watched them fly, winging their way downtown, instinctively avoiding the forbidding demon HQ tower marring the morning skyline. He sighed and turned away.

Today he had arranged to go meet with another ex-hunter, an old guy named Ted, who said he had Tylenol. Dean hoped he would be able to barter a few hours of manual work. He knew a couple people in his building who could really use some serious pain relief.

At least there was a treatment for physical pain.

~o~

Dean hit the sidewalk cautiously. He walked with his head down these days, the cocky spirit knocked out of him by failure and betrayal and by the loss of everyone he cared about.

There were still a few demon punishment squads around and all it needed was to look wrong and you could wind up picked out for special, and summary, attention. He knew no one of any importance was actively searching for him anymore. His big purpose was kind of 'last year', but he knew that he was still liable to suffer payback from certain parties if his luck went bad.

Keeping his head down also meant Dean didn't have to see the tattered remains of the Big Brother-style bills that still clung to scarred walls. Faded and torn they lazily flapped in the breeze, bearing his lost brother's face, fiendishly jubilant but still too 'Sam' for comfort.

It took him almost an hour to get to Ted's hideaway in the basement of an old paint store. He had to do the fancy-ass coded knock thing three times before the asshat drew all his door bolts and let him inside.

"You see I got a mess of paint thinners and combustible crap out back," Ted was gabbling as he led Dean inside. "And I reckon I could mix up some kinda fuel for this old motorcycle I got my hands on. Only the dang thing ain't running."

Dean hummed, not entirely convinced. "Not so sure that's gonna work, buddy. But I'll take a look at your machine, as I'm here anyways."

He got on with stripping the machine down and, while he worked, he got to listen to Ted prattle on about all kinds of crap. Clearly the guy hadn't had anyone to talk to in a while, not uncommon with shut-ins, so Dean let him run his mouth off.

"...and so I found this dumpster. Back of Hooky Street. Figured I'd take a look-see. Found a whole case of soap in a dumpster last month, you get me. Nearly crapped my pants when this big guy jumped up. Been sleeping in there I guess and..."

Dean wasn't actually taking much notice. "Yeah. Sure," he mumbled, his mind on the bike.

"...and damn it if he didn't look like freakin' Lucifer himself," the guy went on. "Got outta there toot sweet."

"Like Lucifer himself, huh?" Dean parroted, unthinkingly. Then he looked up at the guy, squinting suspiciously. "This better not be the start of some lame-ass joke at my expense, assclown."

Ted threw up his hands. "Oh no! Noooo! I, uh- Oh God. Sorry, Dean. Wasn't thinking."

Ted had met Dean and his brother once, back in the day, so he got Dean's drift. For looking like Lucifer read looking like Sam. Dean grunted and got back down to work.

"Although," Ted continued, mostly to himself. "Come to think of it, he did kinda look like..."

Dean ground his teeth. If he had had a dollar for every time somebody told him they had seen 'some guy that coulda been Sam'... He wasn't even going to give that thought houseroom.

His Sam was gone.

~o~

Right after dawn the next morning, Ted was rudely awoken by loud banging on the entrance to his secret lair. He stumbled out of his bed and grabbed his pistol. He still had two bullets left that he had hung onto throughout everything. His thinking had been, worst case scenario, one bullet for the demon, one for himself. He ran to the door and aimed his weapon.

"C'mon, Ted. Lemme in. Gotta talk to you. Gotta ask you about something," insisted the guy outside, hoarsely.

It was Dean. Ted wondered what the hell Dean Winchester was doing banging on his door at bird fart in the morning. He unbarred the door and let him inside.

Dean rushed past him. He was breathless and on edge. Ted guessed he must have run there. The truth was, Dean hadn't slept all night imagining Sam jumping out of some back-street dumpster in Ted's face. He needed to see that garbage container with his own eyes.

"Where? Where was it? The dumpster."

He grabbed Ted by the shoulders. Ted was bewildered for a moment.

"Whatcha? What dumpster?" Then light dawned. "Oh yeah. That. Where I saw the big guy? It was on Hooky Street. Behind ReadMission the book store, I guess."

"Book store," echoed Dean. "Crap. It HAD to be a freakin' book store. Freakin' bookworm."

Fate was really making sure he checked this one out.

"You OK?" asked Ted, solicitously.

He wasn't used to seeing Dean so discombobulated. These days he was typically all business.

"Guess I scared you, huh? Sorry, Ted, but you know..."

Sure Ted knew. Even when you have given up, hope has a way of never letting you be. He had been there himself.

Hasn't everyone?

TBC

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A/N: Finally got this story ready to post. Started it at Christmas, would you believe. So what is Dean going to find in that dumpster? More tomorrow. I'm going to try to update this daily.


	2. Bum

A/N: Who was it Ted saw in that dumpster? Dean is about to find out.

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Love Me Again (Part 2: Bum) by frostygossamer

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This was something Dean had to do. Every time. He didn't have it in him to turn his back on anyone who bore the vaguest resemblance to his brother. Not again. So he had to go do what he could. It made zero sense but it was a reflex he could never quite shake. Even though he knew it wouldn't BE Sam, couldn't be, with a certainty that made his heart weep. His Sam was gone. He was NEVER going to see that stupid schmuck again.

Dean walked down Hooky Street with his hand on the hilt of his knife, Sam's knife, ready for anything. Somehow, while he held Sam's blade in his hand, it felt like his brother still had his back.

A nagging voice in his head had made him come, but there was really no hope in his heart. All he wanted to do was see this big guy of Ted's and prove to himself what a blind sonuvabitch the former hunter had become, mistaking anyone for his brother. If he didn't, it was going to gnaw at his insides.

Being an older brother was part of Dean's DNA. There were other brothers out there, other sons, other Sams, other poor wretches, lost and friendless, close to giving up. He couldn't help doing whatever he still could for them. It was what he did. And it was all he had left.

There were several small dumpsters in the back street, two larger ones nearer the end. Dean guessed a tall guy was going to need a maxi-sized dumpster. He approached the first cautiously and raised the lid. Nothing. Old garbage, and not even as much of that as there once had been. Anything of any possible use had already been salvaged.

Dean approached the second, his enthusiasm already waning. He slapped the side with his hand and demanded, "Anyone in there?" without expecting a reply.

There was a small, startled, shuffling sound from inside.

"Freakin' rats," thought Dean with a lip-curl of distaste.

He hated rats, and he had good reason. He had eaten himself some bad rat in the last few years. Dean was about to walk away when there was another scrabbling sound from inside the container.

"Freakin' BIG-ass rats," Dean concluded, then he snapped, "OK, lemme see you," and flung open the lid of the dumpster.

Sure there was a bum in the dumpster. And, yeah, he was a BIG bum. But like Sam? Dean blew out a bah. Dressed in rags and covered in filth, long dirty hair and wild bushy beard, the guy looked like he had been born to live in a dumpster. He huddled, scared, in the far corner, as far away from Dean as he could get. He was a wretched sight, smeared with dust, ash and general crap but, hell who knows, the guy could have been an accountant with a wife and kids before the damn Apocalypse went down. Dean had to feel sorry for him.

"Look, pal. Didn't mean to scare ya," he said, quietly. "How long is it since you had yourself a square meal, huh?"

The bum coughed raggedly and tried to speak. Dean guessed maybe he hadn't spoken to anyone in, well, longer than Ted.

Then, in a broken voice, the guy croaked, "Dude? You're... I... Oh man... Please... Help me."

~o~

Dean stood by his window looking out at the sprawling ruins of Detroit. Inside, his mind was a mess of self-doubt. What had possessed him to bring a filthy bum who bore a passing resemblance to freakin' Lucifer home to his place? Again? He couldn't believe himself. He had to be loosing it.

He had lost count of the desperate guys he had brought back to his squat for a wash down, a square meal, a bed for the night. Occasionally even HIS bed. He wasn't proud of that and he knew it was screwed up because Sam had been his brother not his freakin' lover. But what other way was there to even get near the memory of that easy closeness that had developed over the years between him and Sam, like with no one else? How else was Dean ever going to recapture that, even for a few stolen moments?

Sometimes Dean really ached for that intimacy, for someone to hold, someone who could be his Sam for one night. So now he had yet another one in his bathroom. Another wanderer, another non-Sam who, as always, would disappoint him with his non-Sam-ness and make him glad when the guy was ready to get on his way again.

Dean despised himself for feeling that way, for not being able to move on. But, deep down, he knew he never would. Not when his brother's death had left his heart so cold and empty.

He could hear the bum in his bathroom. There were advantages to risking a firebombing by living on the top floor. He had the luxury of an executive washroom. And it worked, for the most part. He hoped the rainwater-filled tank on the roof could handle all the guck sloughing off of THIS guy.

~o~

The guy stunk. There was no ignoring it. And the moment they had gotten inside Dean's place he knew he wasn't going to be able to stand it in a confined space. So he pushed him right toward the bathroom.

The facilities consisted of two big sinks and two toilet cubicles. There was even a small shower stall for the executive's after-jog rinse down. Shame there was no hot water, only cold.

"Knock yourself out," he told his visitor. "Cold faucets work and I even have soap."

He proudly pointed out the dish where one of the soap cakes Ted had paid him with lay.

"Shaving gear and scissors right here."

He handed him his spare kit and left him to it.

Dean knew he was taking a risk, leaving a stranger with a cut-throat and shears, but the mop-head needed serious blades to hack off some of that wild mane and facial fuzz.

The guy stood there, arms hanging limp at his sides, staring blankly as Dean closed the door behind him.

~o~

Dean glanced at his watch. The bum had been in there forty minutes already. Dean wasn't surprised. He guessed it could take someone in that state all day to regain some semblance of humanity.

He didn't begrudge it to him. Dean knew he was lucky that he had water and drainage and so forth, and that he had been able to keep it working for himself and his fellow occupants. It made a huge difference to their quality of life. Especially the women. They had so little, at least he could help them retain their dignity.

Meanwhile, Dean sorted through his small supply of food. He figured he could spare the guy a small can of ham and some dried beans to give him one half-decent meal. He hated to send anyone on their way with an empty belly. He pondered on whether he could negotiate a warm coat for the guy from a couple women he knew who recycled old drapes and rugs into much needed clothing.

He would call by the next day, when it was time to kick the guy out.

~o~

When the visitor finally emerged from the washroom, he hovered for a moment in the doorway, watching his Samaritan. He was dressed in what Dean had put aside for him: an old but clean pair of jeans, boxers underneath even, and a thermal undershirt. Nothing fancy, but a little warmer than the stolen rags he had been wearing. And it was SO good to be clean again.

"Dude, I, uh..." he began, uncertainly.

Dean looked up from the pan of beans and ham he was stirring and took in the stooped figure. He had to chuckle, hardly bitter at all. Ted was an idiot. This guy wasn't half as monolithic as his brother had been. His bones were clearly visible through his pale, drawn skin. His shaggy hair, now roughly chopped and still damp, was limp and graying. His face was only half visible, the unkempt whiskers shaved off, but his thick bangs still hung over his eyes like camouflage.

"Dunno what the heck I expected, but you're not it," Dean murmured to himself.

He slapped on a fake smile. The bum responded with an uncertain half-grin.

"You ready to eat?" Dean asked aloud, not bothering to wait for an answer. "Sure you are."

He dished the beans up on two metal plates, making sure to give the newcomer the bigger share. Dean knew it wasn't a good idea to offer the guy the lot. He would have gotten suspicious. It could have been drugged. There was a great deal of good eating on a grown man and some survivors weren't beyond that sort of trick.

Dean pulled an office chair up to the old desk he used as a table, indicating for the guy to take another, then he shoved a plate in front of him. The hungry guy dove into his meal like he hadn't eaten for days. He probably hadn't. Dean ate his food more slowly, eyeing the guy as he noisily gobbled up his beans.

"So, uh, how was it for you?" Dean asked, eventually.

Everyone Dean had ever met had their own heart-rending story about the Apocalypse and what they had lost. It pained him to hear it, but Dean knew all too well how much it could help to talk. Sometimes all he could do for people was listen.

The bum chuckled mirthlessly without raising his head, he had gotten used to never meeting anyone's eyes straight on.

"Challenging." Evidently an understatement.

Dean laughed. "You bet ya." He knew that feeling.

"Honestly? Wouldn't know where to start," the guy continued, gravely. "Most of the time I was flat out of it. He was in total control. And was I freakin' glad when he was? Because, seriously, you wouldn't even wanna SEE some of the crap I lived through."

Dean had already opened his mouth to utter some comforting banality when where the guy was going hit him. He quickly closed it.

"HE was in control?" he asked, hesitantly. "Who was in control?"

The guy looked a little confused. "Lucifer," he answered. "Dean, you know that."

Dean put down his plate and sprang from his chair. He grabbed the bum by his face with both hands and stared at him searchingly. Familiar hazel eyes stared back, dull now but seemingly genuine and open.

"Dean?" the guy quavered, cowering a little.

Dean took a deep breath, a very deep breath. He felt giddy, suddenly seeing the truth in front of him that his mind had utterly refused to entertain.

"Sam?" he breathed. "Sam?! Oh God, Sammy. It really IS you."

"Well, duh." Sam huffed and shook himself out of Dean's grip. "Dumb-ass."

But there was affection in his voice and it was the best thing Dean had heard in too long.

~o~

His brother didn't exactly need to clue Dean in on what had happened to him in the last four years. Dean could have lived without having his worst fears verified. But apparently Sam wanted to. So they spent the rest of the afternoon catching up.

Dean heated a pot of stale coffee on his camp stove. He poured two shots of the steaming java in a couple chipped mugs he had found laying around the office. One was a freebie from some stationary supply firm, the other read 'World's Best Dad' in ironic red letters.

He plonked one mug in front of Sam and took a swig out of the other, spinning his lopsided office chair to sit with arms folded across the back. He stared at his brother silently as the big guy picked up his mug and cautiously took a sip. Sam let out a relieved sigh, relaxing a little as the hot liquid hit his throat.

"Coffee."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Sorta. Near as I can get these days. Not good but..."

"...better than the alternative," Sam murmured.

"Which is?" Dean queried.

"Human blood, drunk warm from a beating heart," Sam answered, with a sneer. "Luci's poison of choice. It's way more spicy than that demon 'Gatorade'."

Dean grimaced. "Jeez!"

"Yeah, well. I'd let you do the demon tests on me, Dean, only I'm not totally sure I'd pass. Got way too much sulphur and freakin' hellcrap in my system. You're gonna hafta trust me."

"Sure."

Trust wasn't something that Dean remembered much, but he could fake it. Trusting meant he had Sam back. Not trusting meant no Sam. Kind of a no-brainer.

Now clean and fed, Sam had finally started to notice his surroundings. He glanced around the room.

"No devil's traps? No sigils?" he asked, puzzled. "You don't keep your place warded?"

Dean waved away the idea. "No point. Demons know where I am. Never come knocking."

Sam seemed very surprised. "Seriously? They're not on your ass?"

"Not any more," Dean answered. "Dean Winchester's yesterday's news. Luci couldn't give a flying cuss, apparently."

"Luci knows you're alive? Dean, he told me you were gone," Sam gasped. "I was... I gave up. Thought you were ALL gone."

Dean smiled gently at his brother. "Well, I'm not. For what it's worth."

Sam leaned back in his chair. "If I only coulda known," he murmured, wistfully.

~o~

From what Sam told Dean, he had only the sketchiest idea of the years when his meat-suit was being ridden by the Prince of Darkness. All that time hellish images had flashed in and out of his shaky consciousness like scenes from some deranged horror movie while he fought hard to hang on to what was left of his sanity.

Once in a while Lucifer would let him wake up long enough to properly experience his dreadful realization of St. John's vision: the seemingly interminable battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell. Human souls were destroyed with a wave of the hand. Angels were smashed with a thought and demons squashed like bugs. Innocents and sinners alike were crushed beneath Lucifer's heel as he waded knee-deep in gore and guts.

It was enough to break any man. Any lesser man than a Winchester.

"But, uh," Dean interrupted him in full flow. "But he replaced you, right? He's gotten some white supremacist's wet dream for a vessel now. Big ugly mug's on all the billboards. Sam, when Luci rolled out the new tank I figured... figured your carcass'd gotten put out with last night's garbage."

Sam nodded vigorously. "THAT's exactly what DID happen," he agreed. "I was supposed to be THE righteous vessel, right? Yeah, but Luci never did like to play the game by his daddy's rules. He upgraded on me. Tossed this old meat-suit like yesterday's dirty shorts."

Dean made a face at the analogy.

"Yeah, like that," Sam agreed. "BUT he left me IN here. Guess he thought it was funny, the sick bastard."

"So you been wandering around the place, what, looking for me?" Dean asked.

"Thinking you were DEAD, Dean," Sam reminded him. "Not looking for anyone. Trying not to get myself dead too. Half-crazy, haunted by freakin' hellacious flashbacks. Everyplace I went, one look at this freakin' face and everyone ran scared, or turned vengeful on my ass. Had to sleep out in the open, steal food, hide my face under long hair and a stupid beard. I'd call it a nightmare if I hadn't just escaped from something a million times worse."

"Poor kid," said Dean, leaning across to put a comforting hand on the guy's shoulder.

He was a little surprised at himself for sounding so stupidly sentimental. Sam smiled weakly.

"Came to Detroit 'cause this is where I left my humanity," he explained. "Never thought to see your sweet face again, bro."

He placed his hand gently on Dean's cheek. Without thinking, Dean turned in toward Sam's hand and Sam quickly pulled it back, on reflex. He wasn't used to his older brother being so mushy. But then he hadn't yet seen what four lonely years had done to him.

"It's been bad, Dean. I was mortally ashamed and desperate. Woulda ended it but, damn it, don't even know where you go to right now, when you die. Bounds of Earth, Heaven, Hell all kinda blurry. If there's some other place I don't even wanna know about it."

"Rumour is you kinda POP up someplace else," Dean commented. "Why I'm still here."

Sam stared at him a moment. "Never thought you'd give up the fight, Dean."

Dean sighed and lay back in his chair. "Nothing left to fight, Sam. War's over. We lost."

Sam couldn't dispute that, so they were both quiet for a while.

Then, "So, uh, how did YOU make it through?" Sam asked, breaking the silence.

"By the skin of my teeth," was Dean's grim answer. "First couple years, kept on moving, hiding out in rat holes and freakin' caves with a bunch of other hunters. When they had gotten too close, we split up and tried to merge with the landscape. After a long-ass time underground, the crap cooled down and I found myself solo in Detroit. Lost touch with the old team. Figure they pretty much all bought it, one way or another."

"Damn shame," Sam murmured.

Dean had to agree. "Since then I've gotten by like everyone else, scavenging in the ruins, making do with whatever I can scratch up, helping other survivors, taking in strays." He leaned close and ruffled Sam's hair. "Mostly big guys with too much hair and a smart attitude."

Sam chuckled. "Yeah, that's you, Dean."

TBC

* * *

A/N: War stories exchanged. More comes out about Dean's way of coping tomorrow. 


	3. Crash

A/N: Sam and Dean seem to be still a little awkward around each other. That has to change.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 3: Crash) by frostygossamer

* * *

Dean put down a wafer-thin mattress in a corner for Sam to sleep on. He topped it with a couple old couch pillows and a thin, moth-eaten blanket.

"You can crash here," he told him.

Sam eyed the heap doubtfully. Even he wasn't sure his brother should be trusting him to sleep over so soon.

"I'm OK on the street."

"In this weather? Don't be a dork, man," retorted Dean. "At least it's dry in here."

Whatever Sam had been through, he was nonetheless human and Dean wasn't going to leave him out in the cold. Dean still had his compassion, if little else.

"I'm acclimated," Sam grunted.

"Sure," Dean replied. "I know it."

"You don't need me hanging around, Dean. I'm trouble."

Dean dismissed that opinion with a snort.

"You were ALWAYS trouble, Sammy. But you're here and you're home now, such as it is. I'm not letting you walk out on me again, dude."

Sam inhaled sharply. Dean had a way of saying the nicest things like he was chewing him off. It made his heart clench and his breath catch in his throat.

"Sure, Dean," he whispered. "Whatever you say."

Dean gave him a decisive nod. He liked it when his kid brother did as he was told.

~o~

Dean lay on his couch bed staring up at the ceiling. He could hear his brother breathing across the room in the dark and it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. He turned over and looked at Sam, faintly lit by moonlight. Sam was wakeful, gazing into space.

"You still awake?" asked Dean.

"Mm-hmm," agreed Sam. "Don't sleep so much. Dreams, they keep me up."

Nightmares, Dean assumed. He considered for a moment and then patted the side of his couch.

"C'mon up here," he commanded, in his big brother voice.

Sam squinted up at him. "What?" he asked.

"You heard me," Dean insisted. "This thing's way more comfortable than the floor. Warmer too."

Sam processed the notion. "You're kidding, right?"

The couch was deep and long but it was no double bed. There wouldn't be room for two adult guys without a certain amount of overlap.

Dean scoffed. "Don't be a doofus, man. Get your ass up here. Stat."

Sam hesitated for a moment then got up and walked over to Dean's couch. He sat down on the edge and his brother lifted his covers to let him slide in beside him. Sam lay on his back and heaved a deep sigh. Dean found himself squished up against the back of the couch and squirmed uncomfortably.

"On your SIDE, dumb-ass," he ordered. "This ain't no king-size."

Sam huffily twisted on his side, facing out into the room with Dean behind him. After a second he felt his brother's arms snake around his body and pull him into a spoon.

Taken by surprise, "Dude?!" he objected. "Since when did you become a cuddle-bunny?"

Dean grunted something grumpy into the back of his neck.

"You do this with ALL your stray guys?" teased Sam.

"Shut up," Dean retorted, too sharply. Then, after a moment, he quietly added, "Yeah, pretty much."

Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Dude!" he gasped.

Dean blew out a deep breath. "Yeah. Well, had to get by without you somehow, Sammy."

Sam was shaken. He got how it must have been for Dean, left all alone. He really did. He remembered how it had been for HIM when Dean's crossroads deal had come through and he had had to survive up top all by himself. That was how he had gotten mixed up with Ruby, after all. But the thought of his straight-as-a-nail brother getting hands-on with guys seemed freaky somehow.

It wasn't like Dean hadn't had enough opportunity to experiment, if he had wanted, growing up all pretty like he did. Sam knew he had had offers and he also knew those offers were always turned down flat with a choice comment. The Apocalypse had changed people. It had certainly changed Sam. But surely not his brother. Dean had always been the constant in Sam's world.

Then again, if Dean had felt even half as desolate as he had...

"I hear you," he mumbled sleepily, patting his brother's hand. "And I'm back now."

"Yeah, you're back," agreed Dean.

He waited until his little brother had slipped into unconsciousness before he placed a gentle kiss on the back of his head.

"Back for good," he murmured.

~o~

Dean woke the following morning as the first rays of dawn filtered through the slats of dirty, broken window blinds. He was glad to find Sam still there, comatose on the edge of his makeshift bed, glad that he hadn't turned out to be another self-deluding and ultimately disappointing dream.

"Poor kid," Dean thought.

In the early light, Sam looked like death barely warmed over, even scrawnier than he had been when Dean reconnected with him at Stanford and took him on the road again. His skin was as pale as blotting paper. Gone was the golden tan that always made him seem to glow from within.

Dean eased himself out from behind Sam's sleeping form and paid a bathroom visit. He took along his camp kettle and returned a minute later with it full of water, setting it on his stove to boil.

He considered the last of his coffee resources. Barely enough for one more brew. As for food, he had a couple apples, a knuckle of bread and a large, slightly rusty can of frankfurters he'd been saving. With two mouths to feed he was gonna have to go out and see what he could scrounge up.

Sam woke up when the scent of hot coffee tempted his nostrils.

"F*ck?!" he yelped, sitting bolt upright, not knowing where he was.

Dean chuckled from his kitchen area. "Hey, dude, it was only freakin' spooning. Maybe next time."

Then he remembered he was talking to his actual brother and coughed awkwardly.

Sam swung his long legs over the side of the couch and sat with his head low, bangs hiding his face. He looked so beat Dean went over and folded his brother's big, pliant hands around a piping mug of java.

"Thanks," Sam murmured, and took a big slurp. "I needed that."

"At least you managed to get a little shuteye."

"Yeah." Sam seemed a little surprised. "First real sleep I've had in months."

Dean tried to smooth down his brother's mussed-up hair, but stopped when he felt Sam cringe beneath his hand. He changed the subject.

"We're gonna hafta try and find some more work or we're not gonna eat. I repair crap, tinker with engines. Guess we could both find manual work. You're not in TOO bad a shape."

"Can't," Sam retorted. "People know this face, even with the goddamn beard. Can't get work any place. Not from regular people, not even from freakin' demons. I scare them, or they get violent. They all watched TV news."

Everyone except Dean probably. Dean had turned off the idiot box whenever Lucifer appeared, working his brother like a puppet, abusing Sam's little brother smile and cherished voice. When city power had failed, it had almost been a relief.

"OK, so we do something with the face," Dean suggested, uncertainly.

He hunkered down in front of his brother and used both hands to brush back the limp hair that disguised the guy's sorry features. His eyes met Sam's watery hazel gaze full on and grew wide.

"Jeez, Sam," he gasped.

He felt as if a bolt of electricity had hit him. He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around his brother's shoulders, finally allowing himself to feel the joy of reunion.

"Jeez, Sam. Sammy, hey."

He started to chuckle and Sam, confused at first, began to chuckle too.

"Dude, you gonna do this every morning? 'Cause it's gonna get old soon."

Then they were laughing and tears were falling helplessly. Dean let go of his brother and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You tell anyone about this and I'll hunt you down and kill you."

Sam smirked and stood up. "If you need to come looking for me I'll be in the can."

~o~

The moment the bathroom door closed behind Sam, there was a knock on Dean's door. Dean recognized the secret code-knock of one of his neighbours. Unlocking, he pulled the door open a crack and peered out. On his 'unwelcome' mat hovered a teenager of about fourteen years with a worried look on her face.

"Dean, Mom's had another vision."

Dean knew what that signified. The girl lived on the floor below his with her slightly crazed, psychic mother. The older woman's clairvoyance had been all but burned out by the Apocalypse itself, but she still picked up the occasional image when the psychic 'wind' was from the right direction.

"Want me to come down and visit with her, Trish?"

Trish's mom's visions seldom amounted to much, but they were sometimes worth following up. Even when they weren't, it helped the poor woman to talk them out with one of the enlightened.

"Would you?" she responded.

Right then the toilet flushed and Sam came out the bathroom. Spotting Dean's visitor, he hustled right back in there. But the girl had immediately turned away, hiding her face from the newcomer behind her ringlets, ashamed of her scars.

"Oh, uh, didn't realize you had a guy over, Dean," she apologized nervously. "I woulda-"

Dean stopped her, brushing the curls back off of her face. He didn't think Trish had to hide those scars, the scars she had gotten saving her mom from a hellhound attack. They only made her more beautiful, in his eyes.

"No need to freak, Trish. You look fine. It's cool," and he couldn't help adding, "He's family."

"Family?" she repeated, with a sort of awe in her voice. "You found someone? After all this time?"

It was so rare to find anyone you even vaguely knew in the ruins it seemed like a minor miracle.

"Yep." Dean was unable to hold back a cheesy grin. "Fished him out of a dumpster."

Trish giggled, all nervousness now gone. "That's so great, Dean. Uh, I'll see you downstairs, huh?"

Dean nodded. "Expect me there in a couple minutes. Tell your mom I'm on the case."

Sam didn't reappear from the bathroom until he heard Dean close and re-bolt the door.

"She a neighbour?" he asked. "Sounds nice."

"She's a sweetheart," Dean agreed. "Poor kid was only yay high when the Apocalypse kicked off. Only kid in her whole damn school survived. Her mom's pretty much a basket case. But she comes up with the goods on occasion."

"So you figure the vision may be for real?" wondered Sam.

"I'm thinking she might just have picked up on YOU," answered Dean, pointing at the floor. "They live right below."

"Oh," Sam responded. "Guess I could still be reading a little hot on her psychic Geiger counter."

"What I thought," agreed Dean. "You sit tight while I go downstairs. I'll be back in an hour. OK?"

Sam nodded and Dean disappeared out the door.

~o~

While he was gone, Sam took a good look around Dean's apartment. It amused him to think that a life spent travelling the highways of America, moving from one crappy motel to another, had fitted Dean for this make-do way of life more than most. The guy had been foraging for a living his entire life.

As to be expected, there was very little that was personal in the place. Dean's few precious things, like his crumpled photo of their mom, were still packed safely away in a duffel so he was ready to run at a moment's notice. There were some dishes in a plastic bowl and a small pile of well-thumbed paperbacks. On a clothes rail liberated from some store, a few items of laundry hung on wire hangers drying.

Sam noticed one particularly large plaid shirt which could have been one he had once owned. He checked out the shirt then slipped it off of its hanger and put it on, on top of the thermal he was wearing. It fit.

"The hell," he chuckled. Dean had been using his shirt.

Loosing interest in his immediate surroundings, Sam studied the view through the window. The cityscape spread out endlessly below him, a scene of total devastation. Sam felt a sudden urge to make a bitter if nerdy observation.

"Founded 1701, over five million inhabitants, a city of almost 143 square miles. Freakin' laid waste in less than six months. Way to go, Luci. So this is what the Book of Revelation was all about, huh? Ninety-six percent of the human race gone. And all of it the backwash of some petty beef with Daddy."

In some twisted way it could almost have been funny.

~o~

The sound of Dean scratching at the door as he re-entered the apartment roused Sam from his reverie.

"Sam!" Dean barked, standing in the open doorway.

The younger Winchester turned around slowly, one eyebrow raised in question.

"Something comes through the freakin' door," Dean growled, "and you don't check out if it's even human? Didn't I train you better than that?"

Sam shrugged. "Listen, Dean, if they were coming for me there's not a damn thing I could do about it."

Dean expressed his opinion of that attitude with a gruff humph, then he did a double take.

"You're wearing that shirt," he snapped.

Sam looked down at himself. He had almost forgotten he had put the thing on.

"Yeah, sure. So what? It's one of mine, right?"

"Yeah, it was yours but now it's freakin' MINE," Dean grumbled.

He proceeded to drag the shirt off of his brother's back. Sam tried to cooperate but he didn't get why he should.

"OK, OK," he objected. "Don't twist my freakin' arm off."

Dean mumbled to himself as he carefully folded and smoothed the garment.

"Hauled this freakin' thing around for four damn years. Don't need you mussing it the hell up now."

Along with one weird-shaped knife, the brightly checked article was all Dean had had left of his brother for so very long. Running for his life had forced him to ditch almost everything he ever owned, though that was never much. Sam's duffle had been an early sacrifice, much as it had hurt Dean to have to give it up. He had hung onto that one shirt, which had somehow gotten switched around in the laundry right before Sam took off that last time.

But that wasn't the real reason Dean had freaked. Those non-Sam guys he had rescued from the streets? Some had been willing to play along, dress up and be Sam for a night, let Dean spoon them in repayment for his hospitality. Those eager to take a little more than Dean had wanted to offer? Afterwards even they could still be Sam in Dean's arms, in that shirt.

Sam stepped closer and put a big hand on his brother's shoulder.

"I'm here now, man. Right here. Dude, you don't need a freakin' blankie anymore. You got ME."

Dean laughed. He had reacted like an insecure kid and he knew it, but it was hard to shake the pain of separation, even now his brother was back.

He handed the shirt back to Sam. "Take it." Sam took it from him. "Now c'mon. We got work to do."

~o~

When Dean had gone downstairs to Trish's place, he had been greeted by a door as heavily fortified as his own. He knocked firmly. D-E-A-N in Morse code. Trish opened right up.

"Told Mom you were coming. She's a little calmer now. Go right on through."

Patti, Trish's mom, was sitting in her customary chair staring blankly out the window. In her hand she held a rosary which she fumbled with once and again. Dean sat down across from her and smiled disarmingly.

"Hi, Patti. How's things?"

Patti turned, seeming to notice him for the first time, and smiled.

"Oh hello, Dean. How's your brother? He settling in OK?"

Dean had long since stopped being surprised that Patti knew things about him he hadn't told her.

"Uh-huh. He's good, real good. You have something to tell me?"

Patti closed her eyes, like she was blocking out the world.

"Had a visitor last night. Skuld. She spoke to me again. She showed me something."

Dean turned away with a curse on his lips. He remembered searching for the three Wyrd Sisters right before the Apocalypse. He had questions for them, questions that needed answers. But they were running from Lucifer, running from their fate, having foretold their own doom along with mankind's.

By the time Dean caught up with them, only one remained alive. Skuld, the youngest, the one with her eye on the future.

When he found her, the old woman was hiding out in a tiny walk-up in Philadelphia, front door firmly barred against the world. She ignored Dean's polite demands to open up, so he kicked down the door and marched on in.

Naturally, she wasn't surprised to see him.

TBC

* * *

A/N: What was it Skuld told Dean? More tomorrow. 


	4. Soup

A/N: Dean recalls tracking down the last of the three Wyrd Sisters, Skuld, right before the Apocalypse. Was anything this goddess of fate had to say worth his trouble?

Disclaimer: 'What Do You Do For Money, Honey?' is the property of AC/DC and its copyright holders.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 4: Soup) by frostygossamer

* * *

Skuld called it the final hope of Man. She told him it was the one way to defeat evil and free the world. She said it was a treasure beyond price. She told him it was lost but one day would be found, found when the world needed it most.

The only problem was, she couldn't, or wouldn't, say what IT was.

Dean had spent the whole of that final month before the Apocalypse hunting down the three Wyrd Sisters, the entire month since Sam had snuck away to say yes to Lucifer. And when only one of the bitches still drew breath, that was ALL she had to say?

"The hell's that even supposed to mean?" he demanded, angrily. "So NOT the time to get all 'Riddle me this'. You got a message for me then spit it out in plain American."

When Skuld refused to reply, he simply sighed and turned to leave. It was too damn late for this kind of crap. He had had enough. He quit. Pausing for a moment in the doorway, he cocked his weapon.

"I'm sorry," he said, sincerely, and then carefully placed a bullet in the tiny crone's heart.

Harsh? Not really, seeing as he knew that Lucifer would be there any moment to torture her in unspeakable ways simply to hear her 'truth'. There was no other way Dean could save her.

The old woman clung on for a moment, as the feeble life force ebbed from her body. The last sister to buy the farm breathed her final adieu.

"Remember, Dean Winchester, it shall rise from the ashes," she gasped, and then she too was gone.

So much for fate. Tends to turn around and bite you in the butt.

~o~

As Patti smiled benignly on him, Dean had to wonder whether she knew he was responsible for her phantom familiar's demise. And whether Skuld brought titbits of news to his friendly psychic to help or simply harass her killer.

"What did she show you?" Dean wasn't expecting any great enlightenment.

Dean knew Patti often heard from HER Wyrd Sister. Now that the old dame was dead, she had a hell of a lot more to say. Dean only wished she had been more forthcoming BEFORE the crap had hit the end-of-days fan.

Patti stretched out her arms in a theatrical gesture.

"She showed me a dark presence," she intoned, balefully. "She told me it was the final piece of the cosmic puzzle, the key to man's survival. And she told me it was... ABOVE!"

With that she turned her palms upward and stared meaningfully at the ceiling.

"Above?" repeated Dean.

"Uh-huh," agreed Patti, firmly.

"That's what she said," confirmed her daughter Trish. "The actual key to our salvation. Above!" and she glanced portentously heavenward.

Dean exhaled and pointedly suggested, "You told her about him." meaning Sam.

The girl shook her head. "Nope. Not a word."

He turned back to Patti. "Maybe you been picking up a vibe from-"

Patti chuckled. "-from your brother? Yes, Dean, I guess I have. But Skuld said-"

Dean still wasn't impressed. "Look, Patti, I don't doubt you been shooting the breeze with the beyond, but those Sisters talked a freakin' crock when they were alive."

Patti smiled and patted his knee. "She told me she doesn't blame you, Dean," she said, gently. "And she says it wasn't a riddle. That you'd understand it by and by."

Dean still wasn't impressed.

~o~

Dean stayed two steps ahead of Sam as they walked along the city street in the direction of Ted's foxhole. Sam was skulking in an enveloping hoodie pulled right down over his eyes. As a result he tripped every few paces. Dean snickered every time he did.

"Always were a freakin' clumsy klutz," he chuckled.

Sam glared at the back of his head. "Not clumsy, it's just you're going too fast when I can't see to put a foot down."

"Klutzy," retorted Dean, getting an annoyed grunt from Sam.

He was really enjoying having his brother around to rag again. Getting a rise out of Sam was so easy.

"So where're we going?" Sam asked, to change the subject.

Dean shrugged. Like he hadn't already explained it to the guy ten times.

"I'm taking you to Ted's. You remember Ted? Then Ted and me are gonna go check out the bone-grinder that Trish told me about."

"What freakin' bone-grinder?" demanded Sam.

Dean hadn't told him much of what Patti and her daughter had talked to him about. The elder brother grinned, showing Sam a glimpse of the old Dean.

"She told me there's a rumour going around that something's picking off rag pickers and rough sleepers, chewing up their bones and leaving their bodies to rot. Now that's not cannibals. Cannibals woulda taken the meat. Thing that'd eat the bones and leave the flesh ain't human. And there's enough regular danger in the city without some fugly jumping people. So I'm gonna go hunt the sucker. And I'm gonna have Ted watch my back."

"I watch your back," protested Sam.

Dean rounded on him. "YOU're a freakin' hot potato right now, Sam. Ted may be little wacko but I'm not gonna hafta watch him while he's watching me. YOU can stay at his place until we get back. Capeesh?"

Sam grunted. "Not a complete wreck, Dean. Can still get the job done."

"Your job's to do what I freakin' say," insisted his brother. "Gotta learn to walk before you can freakin' run. You're rusty, could get yourself hurt. Not gonna lose you right when I've finally gotten you home."

Sam grumbled to himself. "Freakin' bossy."

Dean snorted at that remark, and they continued their journey. Ted was going to be so freaked when he saw Sam washed and shaved. Dean snickered. He was so looking forward to scaring the crap out of the poor guy.

~o~

Sam had been sitting in Ted's place a full two and a half hours when he heard the guys return. Worried sick, he snatched the door open before Dean's fist had even connected to perform the knocking ritual. Surprised, Dean let his hand drop awkwardly.

"Thought I told you to wait for the signal," he scolded the younger Winchester.

"Dean, you told me a lotta things," grouched Sam, letting the two guys inside.

Dean had an old burlap bag in his other hand and he dumped it on the floor. Out of the burlap rolled a round turnip-like head with a few wispy strands of hair and a contorted visage. A pair of dead cod-eyes bulged out of a rubbery face, a beak like a turtle's occupied the place where teeth should have been. There was definitely something 'fishy' about it.

"So what the hell WAS that?" demanded Sam, examining it.

"Beats the hell outta me," responded Dean.

Ted peered at the ugly noggin from behind him.

"We caught up with it crunching on a corpse in the upper business district," he contributed.

"Yeah, we're guessing it may be a Corporate Shark," laughed Dean.

Sam felt an almost physical need to Google the thing's vital stats. His fingers twitched ineffectually. He flashed back on the anguish he had experienced when Lucifer had pulled the switch on the phones and the internet, stranding people in the real world.

"So. You OK, Dean? Yeah, actually I am. Nice of you to ask," Dean snarked.

Sam suddenly remembered himself. "Oh yeah. So you're not hurt? Either of you? Didn't pick up any injuries?"

He had forgotten, for a moment, that his brother hated fussing but absolutely expected to get fussed over.

"Dislocated my thumb," whimpered Ted.

"Yeah, and I may have gotten a boo-boo on my toe," mocked Dean. "Sam, we flattened the sucker with a rock out a second floor window. Easy-freakin'-peasy."

Sam rolled his eyes. "See, Dean. Coulda come with."

"Oh sure you could," agreed Dean wryly.

Like that had ever been going to happen.

~o~

After spending a time getting Ted settled from his adventure, they made their way back to Dean's building. It was dark enough by then to cover their progress through the streets but not yet too dark to venture outside.

Dean let out a sigh when he finally had them padlocked and bolted in for the night.

"Ted tells me there's a little commune three blocks west of here could use someone with plumbing expertise. They know where they can lay their hands on some canned goods. I'll take a run over there first thing tomorrow morning. See what I can do."

Sam's acknowledging nod was interrupted by a wide yawn.

"YOU need to get your head down," Dean pronounced. "I'll fix something to eat and then we'll turn right in."

Sam slumped on the couch while his brother warmed up his supply of frankfurters. By the time he had doled them out on two plates and added a chunk of stale bread each, Sam was already dozing. He nudged him awake with his boot and put his plate in his hands.

"Eat up," he ordered. "This is the last of the food, aside from a couple apples for breakfast."

Sam grunted and put away the sausages gratefully. After they had eaten they prepared for bed. Dean insisted that Sam go on sharing his couch.

"You've not done anything to make me kick you out yet," he joked. "But those franks turn to gas, you're back on the floor."

Dean took great pleasure in tucking his baby brother in bed. Sam closed his heavy eyelids and was already snoring gently when Dean finished checking his locks and slipped under the covers with him.

He laid his cheek on the big guy's chest and listened to the dull thump of his heart, beating beneath his tee. It was music to Dean's ears, but it was running way faster than it should have been. Even in sleep, Sam wasn't at peace.

Dean leaned back to examine his brother's face. Under his lids, the eyes moved incessantly as dreams, most likely nightmares, assailed his troubled brain. Dean brushed his raggedy bangs off of his face and ran a cool hand over his forehead. Sam moaned softly at his touch.

Dean could only marvel at how beautiful his brother was. He knew the map of Sam's face better than he knew his own, that nose, those eyes, those lips. He traced them lightly with his finger tips, then leaned in and placed the ghost of a kiss on his temple. He knew he shouldn't but he couldn't help himself.

Sam struggled vaguely to twist out of reach, mumbling anxiously, "No. No. Lemme be. Plee-ease."

Dean sighed and settled himself down, pulling his brother's head to his chest, nursing it tenderly. Sam seemed to still again after a few moments of gentling.

Almost inaudibly, he murmured, "No. No, you can't. No, Luci, leave them alone. Not the children, No."

Dean stroked his forehead some more, to calm him, and Sam opened his eyes a little.

"Dean?" he asked, like he was afraid of the answer, and then a little more scared, "Dean?!"

"It's OK, Sammy. I'm here," Dean responded, softly.

Sam raised himself up on an elbow to properly see him. The younger Winchester's eyes narrowed.

"You forgive me, Dean?" he asked, after a breath.

Dean tutted. "Sure I forgive you, Sam. I'm your brother."

That wasn't what Sam needed to hear. Sure Dean was all about brotherly duty, but was that ALL he could come up with? Well, maybe it was more than Sam deserved.

Sam pondered that for a moment. "But can you still love me? After everything?"

Dean didn't hesitate. He had endured more than long enough without him to not answer that one.

"Still your brother, Sam. Always was. Always will be. Can't change that."

He looked up at his brother with eyes so full of warmth Sam could almost feel it radiating around them. Sam couldn't help feeling choked.

"Never stopped loving you either, Dean. Even when Luci hated your guts. Even though he made me believe he destroyed you. Even after he took everything, he couldn't take that."

Dean felt kind of overcome. He closed his eyes tight for a second to give himself a chance to recover.

"You know, Sam? You're as much of a girl as you ever were."

Sam laughed. "Way to spoil the moment, man," he chuckled, and lay back down beside his brother.

Dean put his arm around Sam's broad shoulders and pulled him closer.

"Thought we were tryna catch some zees, not flap our damn tongues. Gonna have one heavy day tomorrow."

Sam murmured his assent and they settled down to sleep again.

And no, they were NOT cuddling. Much.

~o~

Sam woke out of a deep, troubled sleep a couple minutes before Dean returned from his visit three blocks over with a song in his heart and a whistle on his lips. Sam recognized the strains of 'What Do You Do For Money, Honey?' before Dean had climbed the last stair.

"...standing in a queue, just to spend the night with you. It's business as usual..."

A rattling sound accompanied Dean as he let himself in. Sam realized the noise was coming from a gunny sack Dean had slung over one shoulder. He jumped up to take the weight while his brother locked back up, then he opened the sack and peered inside.

"Done good this time, Sam," Dean told him, grinning. "There's half a case of canned soup in there and some real potatoes. Onions even. Those guys over there have these little beauties planted out in freakin' barrels on the roof. So gonna try that."

Sam had to chuckle at how enthusiastic his brother had gotten about survival gardening. This was the same guy who had lived on a strict diet of cheeseburgers and pie for 30 years.

"You've changed. You know that?" he commented.

Dean gave him his serious face. "We've ALL changed, Sam. Life ain't a game anymore. You gotta have respect for the way regular people have hung on in. Luci had no clue what he was up against."

Sam exhaled. "He knew, Dean, but he couldn't be assed to care."

Dean grunted as he wrenched the gunny sack from Sam's hands and dumped it out on a desk. A big misshapen tater fell out on the floor and Sam bobbed down to pick it up. As he did so, something flashed in his head. The picture of a bloody, hacked off, staring head, pitching up at his feet, zapped across his mind's eye, sickeningly. He stumbled and gripped the edge of the desk.

"Hey! Hey, Sam! You OK?" demanded Dean, grabbing his brother to steady him.

Sam tried to dispel the image with a headshake.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess," he mumbled. "I'm fine. A flashback, is all. Just a flashback."

Dean could guess what a flashback might be like for someone who had been through Sam's ordeal. He had seen some horrors himself, while HE was vacationing in Hell.

"C'mon, man. You sit yourself down while I warm up some soup. You'll feel better with something hot inside you."

Sam flopped down in a swivel chair. He watched Dean open a familiar can of Campbell's, tip it in a pan and stir it over the heat of his stove.

"Now Cheeseburger Soup," Dean joked. "THAT woulda been a soup."

Sam made a face. Thank God 'Campbell Soup Company' had been annihilated before some marketing asshat came up with that one.

"No? Well, this is good old tomato rice, so no worries."

A blast from the past. But Sam felt a little guilty to be devouring Dean's meagre supplies.

"Feel like I'm a burden to you, Dean. Maybe I shoulda kept right on drifting."

Dean whipped around and gestured at him angrily with his spoon.

"Don't you let me hear that kinda talk, Sam. If you're a burden then you're a burden I need. To hold me in place. You're not leaving. Ever. Hear that?"

"Yeah, I hear you," Sam acknowledged, half-heartedly.

Dean returned to over-vigorously stirring his soup. He would provide for Sam. That was how it was meant to work. He would rather starve himself than let his brother go hungry.

Sam was left feeling like a scolded kid.

~o~

After they had eaten, Dean went to get himself a shower. He had spent most of the morning up to his armpits in the potato farmers' backed-up toilet. They had given him a bucket of hot water to wash up but he still felt kind of icky.

Sam stood outside the bathroom, listening to his brother splashing around and singing in the chilly but copious water stream.

"Guess you're missing the hot showers in all those motel rooms now, huh?" he shouted through the door.

"Got the pressure," Dean called back. "Can live without the heat."

Five minutes later Dean came stomping out of his bathroom shiny clean and wrapped up in a liberated roller towel, his hair spiky and damp. Sam's eyes followed him across the room. Despite the hardship and deprivation he had seen, his brother still cut a handsome figure. Sam wasn't surprised random guys had been ready to come home with him.

And there was something about that thought he did NOT like.

TBC

* * *

A/N: How does Sam really feel? And can Dean really live without the 'heat'? More tomorrow. 


	5. Rub

A/N: Sam never did know when to stop pushing Dean to talk emotions. He hasn't changed.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 5: Rub) by frostygossamer

* * *

That night as he lay side by side with his dozing brother in the dark, Sam voiced a question that had occurred to him. He seemed to remember that he hadn't left Dean totally high and dry when he walked out to make his date with Lucifer. There were others around back then who were more worthy than he was of Dean's concern, innocents who seemed to deserve his attention more than Sam.

"So you didn't get with... What was her name? Lisa? And her boy...? In the end? I, uh, I kinda recall they were on your mind. Before..."

Dean grunted and shuffled around a little. A lot of things had happened in the run up to the Apocalypse that he would rather forget. The guilt he felt at his failure to save those who had depended on him on the last days would never leave him.

"Lisa bought it in the first offensive," he said, slowly. "Ben..." He paused, a faraway look in his eyes. "We never got a line on what happened to the poor kid. Maybe Luci...?"

Dean didn't know exactly how much Sam had been privy to what had been a systematic eradication of his network, pretty much everyone he had been close to. He knew Lucifer had made a sport of it, back when Dean was still a major player.

He gave Sam a questioning look, but Sam shook his head.

"Got zero," he admitted. "Not around for that one. Guess I was kinda numb from finding out almost everyone that was any-damn-thing to me had been an agent of Azazel. So, uh, sorry, Dean." He patted his brother's arm. "Know they meant a lot to you."

Dean was resigned anyways. So many old acquaintances had simply evaporated, some even literally.

"Mainly worried about the kid," he said, with a sigh. "His mom was a tough cookie. Figured she could take care of herself. Guess I was wrong."

Sam mulled that over for a moment before trying to lighten the mood a little.

"So you never found another chick to get, uh, serious about?" he asked. "Though I guess you must get plenty grateful-"

"Sam! You think I'd take advantage of desperate women? You know me better than that."

Sam did know him better. His brother had always been a player, but he had always been a gentleman. Then again he had also always been straight.

"But guys, they're fine," commented Sam, pointedly. "That what you're saying?"

Dean's mouth dropped open. "Is that what you think? That I been going around picking up guys for sex?"

Sam hadn't actually aimed to go there but, hey, now that they were there. He tilted his head to one side.

"Well, have you?"

Dean tsked, turned over away from him and fell silent.

"Well?" pushed Sam again.

He hadn't meant to be judgemental, but he was finding this whole thing difficult to square with the image he had of his big brother. Dean let out a disgruntled humph.

"FED a few guys, guys that reminded me of you, is all," he mumbled into the back of the couch. "It helped me a little, because you weren't around. And maybe I did spoon up with a few. You blame me? Seriously?"

"Nah, guess not," concluded Sam, thoughtfully. "So you spooned with them. That was it?"

Dean exhaled huffily. He so did NOT like talking about this kind of thing.

"Couple times maybe they wanted more. Three or four. Dunno," he admitted. "Hey, it wasn't me. The gay guys could be maybe a little... overenthusiastic."

"What?" Sam gasped in shock. "Dean! You're saying guys forced you to-"

"Hell no," Dean interrupted, hastily. "That NEVER happened. Always kept a knife ready. YOUR knife."

He brought said knife out from behind a couch pillow. That precious blade was Dean's security object. He tucked it back in its safe place with a shrug.

Sam hesitated to ask more. "Ever have to use it?"

"One time," Dean answered, firmly. Then he more quietly added. "Other times... I went with the flow."

It was a confession. Even without seeing his face, Sam could sense from his tone how much it hurt Dean to acknowledge how low he had gotten. It upset Sam to hear it. He squeezed his brother's hunched shoulder consolingly.

"You want ME to spoon you now?" he asked and started to move his body toward his brother's.

"Nah."

Instead Dean flipped over and snuggled his face into Sam's neck, his hand resting on his brother's chest. A little surprised, Sam put his arms around the older guy and held him tight. Dean was NEVER like this before. Not since they were tiny kids anyways. The guy had been alone way too long.

"Glad you're home, Sammy," the elder Winchester murmured against his brother's skin.

Dean's raw heart was plain to see. Sam did not feel worthy of this.

~o~

Some time in the small hours before dawn, Sam woke with a start from a dream of bloody pandemonium into the cold darkness of a silent room. He lay panting for a while, not sure exactly where or when he was. Sitting forward, he ran a trembling hand through his long hair.

Dean stirred beside him and mumbled sleepy objections and shushes.

"Dean," said Sam.

Dean went right on sleeping, tucked warmly in the space between his brother and the back of the couch.

"Dean!" Sam was a little agitated now.

Dean opened one eye and peered up at him. "Whassup? Nightmare?"

"Mhmm. You could say."

Dean dragged himself up into a sitting position and stuffed a hard pillow behind his back.

"Wanna emote over it?" he asked, dutifully.

"No," was Sam's firm response.

What good would it do to articulate the horrors that constantly fleeted through his head? Dean got it. He knew that. It had been the same when Dean had returned from Hell. Some things are easier to bear without the words.

"Now that's different," remarked Dean.

He began to rub Sam's back soothingly. Sam tensed for a moment, then felt his muscles loosen under the warmth of his brother's hand. He let out a little groan of pleasure.

"Mhmm. Good," he murmured.

Dean chuckled. "You're as stiff as a plank of freakin' wood, Sam. No wonder you can't sleep. Lemme give you a real rub-down."

That sounded like a great idea. Sam turned over and lay down on his stomach so Dean could go to work on him. Dean hesitated for only a second before straddling his brother's hips and getting down to kneading the stiffness out of his spine.

"Takes me back," Sam chuckled. "Haven't let you do this since I was fifteen and pulled something on a hunt."

"Fifteen, you were a gangling muppet of oversized bones and stringy muscle," commented Dean. "Right now you're more like a side of beef, mostly gristle."

Sam exhaled and closed his eyes, resting his head on his folded hands. He almost missed it when Dean bend his body over him and pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck, unaware that he was still awake. When Sam didn't react, Dean became bolder and began to nuzzle along the length of those beloved shoulder blades.

Finding this all very relaxing, Sam flexed his neck and moved his head to allow his brother better access. Dean halted immediately.

Sam gave a petulant grunt. "Hey, I was enjoying that," he griped.

Dean wasn't sure what to say. Sam had caught him doing something he shouldn't, but he didn't seem to care. When Dean didn't continue, Sam turned his head around to look up at him.

"It's OK. It's all OK. Whatever you want, Dean. I'm not gonna freak if you wanna get cozy."

Dean stared at him with a confused frown on his face. That wasn't the reaction he would have expected and he didn't know what to make of what he had gotten. Of course he knew his brother had been the plaything of Lucifer for years. It was hardly surprising that his sense of values would have gotten kind of debased. But somehow Dean hadn't expected his brother to have crapped out as badly as he seemed to have.

"Jeez!" he gasped.

This was screwing with his head, he decided. He wasn't having anything to do with it. Standing up abruptly, he stomped over to the improvised bed he had made for Sam the other night and climbed in it, grumpily tugging the blanket around himself.

Sam quirked a puzzled eyebrow. "Suit yourself," he mumbled.

He got himself comfortable again, shifting into the warm spot Dean had vacated. Over in the corner, Dean was cursing himself.

The handful of gay guys Dean had bedded had obviously been cool with him worshipping those broad shoulders that reminded him so much of his hunky brother. He had soon gotten past his natural antipathy to touching a guy that way. But he hadn't deliberately strayed into the sexual side of intimacy. No sir. That was so NOT what it had been all about. He knew Sam couldn't possibly understand.

But Sam thought he understood very well. Dean had gotten himself homo-sexualized.

~o~

The following day, Dean busied himself with trying to fix a manual typewriter he had found in some abandoned office. Who knew what old-school typist had been hanging on to the superannuated machine? Maybe he would be able to barter it for something more useful. Perhaps some latter-day Pepys would want to document their trying times?

He sat with the component parts spread out on a desk, working deliberately and single-mindedly, ignoring his brother and responding to his attempts at conversation with nothing more than grunts, monosyllables and irritating tappity-taps.

Sam quickly grew bored.

"Suppose I go out and-" he began. He could use a breath of tension-free air.

"No!" snapped Dean, without looking up.

"You dunno WHAT I was gonna freakin' say," complained Sam.

"Huh!" responded his brother.

Sam flopped down on a chair and cast around for something else to talk about. Clearly he had put his foot right in it the previous night trying to bring Dean out about his post-Apocalyptic lovelife. Perhaps they should have discussed his nightmares after all. Less of a minefield there.

Then he remembered something interesting that had been showing up in his dreams lately. He decided to share.

"Last night," he began.

Dean froze. He so did not want to chat about last night. He didn't need to receive his brother's forgiveness or, even worse, permission for sucking on his neck like some pervert.

Sam bit his bottom lip. "Was gonna say, last night I remembered something kinda interesting."

Dean flexed his shoulder muscles and went on working. Sam continued stubbornly.

"Right after you gave me that massage - great job, by the way - I pretty much zoned out and got this, uh, this flash image. Seen it before. In my sleep too. Dunno what the hell it was. Not clear, just shadowy, shapeless. But I'm thinking it was something big."

"Big?" Dean looked up. "Like ogre big?"

He could use the chance to hunt some fugly and take his mind off of his conscience for a while. Ganking monsters could be therapeutic for the soul.

"Nah, not super-size big. I mean big like important. Mega-important, I guess."

Dean put down his pick and brush. "OK, you got me. Spill."

Sam breathed out and let his eyes close, the better to remember.

"It was... incredibly old... and sacred... and, oh, it was under water, sealed in iron and hidden from light. Dunno, I got the impression it was WAY powerful. And, Dean, right now I'm getting that it's totally not far from here."

This was something new. Dean was skeptical.

"And you never mentioned it before why exactly?" he demanded.

Sam shrugged. "These things come and go. It's not like Luci outright confided in me, Dean. He never let me see any-damn-thing that was remotely crucial. A flash here and there is all. But I know I got this REAL strong feel that Luci's crap-scared of this thing. And that he never meant ANYONE to know it."

That got Dean's interest. "You got more?" he asked, hoping for details.

"Nada," answered Sam, unhelpfully. "Before you found me I woke up every time with scrambled egg for brains. The crap that rode me all night melted away like so much snow. Now I wake up half sane. Sometimes I remember a little, but not a whole lot."

"Damn it," Dean muttered.

He was heartily sick of likely sounding ideas that floundered before they had even gotten off of the ground. They had exploded too many of those hopes during the endtime. He pushed the half fixed typewriter away, took out his pistol instead and began to strip it down.

"Seriously, I need to go out and find me something to kill," he grumbled.

When he was done cleaning the gun he stuck it in his belt, slung on his jacket and headed toward the door.

"Gonna go outside, bust some caps," he told Sam. "Maybe I'll get lucky and bag a couple fat rats."

Sam jumped up and grabbed his hoodie camouflage. Dean threw him a warning glare.

"Said I wanted to go out," Sam reminded him. "May as well come along, Dean, huh?"

Dean exhaled in a put-upon fashion.

"OK," he conceded. "But no shooting the crap. I mean business."

~o~

Sam ducked behind the outbuilding and hunkered down, breathing heavily. Dean came from the other side, head down and weapon trained. Sam put his head around the wall then whipped it back suddenly as two shots rang out.

BAM! BAM!

Whoosh! The entire pigeon flock took wing as one. Dean cursed colourfully.

"Only nailed one, damn it. Jeez! Either they're getting wise or I'm getting rusty! Freakin' hate to waste the ammo."

Sam stalked forward and picked up the fresh kill.

"Leastways it's a good fat one."

Dean grunted and snatched it from him, fastening it to his belt by its legs. He had a bunch of songbirds hitched there already.

"Dunno why the goof-offs stay here in Detroit," he grumbled. "Wanna fly their feathery asses up to God's green mountains."

"So where'd you get the ammo, anyways?" Sam asked, as they walked back. "Not like you can pop by Walmart."

Dean winked. "Got my sources," was all he would say.

Sam chuckled and trudged on behind him, head down, hands thrust deep in his pockets. Then, as they rounded the end of the row of shacks, Dean suddenly halted and Sam walked into the back of him.

"Hey!" he yelped.

"Shush!" Dean hissed and held up a hand. "Company."

Humans caught on the streets, day or night, by demon patrols were not liable to survive to regret it. Running Earth was not a barrel of laughs for the average grunt demon. They were glad for any diversion. Being used as target practice was the best anyone could hope for. If you died in one piece that would be a blessing.

Luckily, this time they seemed to have run into someone Dean knew. Recognizing the guy from behind, Dean released the breath he was holding. Sam peered past his brother. He could see some bald guy bent over, occupied by poking around in a pile of refuse, on the other side of the alleyway. After a few seconds, the guy straightened up and turned around, jumping when he noticed he was being watched.

"Yikes!" he gasped. "Jeez, Winchester, thought you was a creeper, you dickweed."

Dean laughed and advanced toward him, grasping his hand in a firm shake.

"Hi, Burt, you deaf old dog. Find any pearls in that trash?" he asked, affably.

The bald guy chuckled. "All I've come up with is this."

He held up a badly bent bicycle wheel. Dean eyed it appreciatively.

"What'll you take for it. A couple chirpers for the pot?"

He opened his jacket to display his catch like a street guy pushing fake Rolexes.

Burt checked out the pigeon. "Rather take the big guy," he countered.

Dean huffed but they made the exchange. All this time Sam had his hood pulled tight, keeping his face hidden behind his bangs. Suddenly Burt spotted him over Dean's shoulder.

"So who's your new friend?" he asked, suspiciously.

Dean waved a casual hand. "Oh, him? He's just some alley cat I ran into across town."

Sam surmised the guy could be more trouble than he looked and took a sneaky step backward.

"Listen, you hear anything on the 'vine, Burt?" Dean asked. "Anything jumping up and singing Dixie?"

Burt returned his attention from Sam to Dean.

"Not a damn thing," he grouched. "Been too goddamn quiet lately, if you ask me."

"Let's hope it's a good sign," Dean commented.

He turned to walk away, surreptitiously gripping Sam by the elbow and pulling him along.

"See you guys," Burt called after them, then returned to his dusty work.

Dean grumbled mostly to himself. "Ex-hunter, Sam, and not one of the good guys. He gets his eye on that freakin' face of yours and he's liable to blow his cool. And we do NOT need you showing up on the hunter radar."

"There's still a hunter radar?" Sam asked, somewhat surprised.

"Kinda," qualified Dean. "It's pretty much ink-and-paper these days."

TBC

* * *

A/N: Nothing much going on? But what about Sam's dreams? More soon.


	6. Bike

A/N: Dean's not going to get far on a bent bicycle wheel.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 6: Bike) by frostygossamer

* * *

As they slogged up the stairs to Dean's place, Dean explained to an incredulous Sam why he had given up their best catch in exchange for a beat-up cycle wheel.

"Bicycle parts are like gold dust, Sam. Got an almost complete machine already. With this baby I can get the freakin' thing roadworthy. They're in high demand. The US has never been so green. Gas shortage'll do that to ya."

They let themselves in and Dean set about preparing his songbirds for a stew. Sam stood behind him watching, fascinated. But he almost barfed when Dean flicked out the birds' entrails with his knife. Clutching his stomach he staggered over to the couch and sat down heavily.

"Dunno why," he moaned. "But that still gets to me. You'd think I'd be over it."

His brother chuckled and threw a piece of something that was actually potato at Sam, making him flinch.

"Always were a fussy sonuvabitch," Dean laughed.

~o~

The stew was magnificent. Made simply from bird flesh, onions and potatoes, it was easily the best thing Sam had tasted in years. One of John Winchester's rough-and-ready poverty line recipes. When they had eaten up, they both sat back and rubbed their stomachs happily.

After a couple minutes, Dean got up from his seat and began hunting around in his file cabinet. He came back to the table with a bottle of jack - a special treasure - and two glasses. He poured them both a shot and pushed one toward his brother.

"Don't share this with just anyone," he told him.

Sam appreciated the magnanimous gesture. He took a sip, enjoying the familiar taste as the liquor slid down his throat. He smiled fondly at his brother. It warmed Dean's soul to see his brother looking so happy. He poured them both another shot.

They were soon pleasantly trashed. Dean retired to his bed and flung himself down with the bottle still in his hand.

"The thing I regret most," he ranted accusingly, at the ceiling, "is that I'll probably NEVER get to taste one ever again."

"One what?" asked Sam, sounding a little squiffy.

"PIE," answered Dean, with some force. "Where the hell am I even gonna find flour to make the pastry to make a pie? Answer me that. I've tasted my last piece of pie. That totally sucks."

"There's still apples," Sam pointed out, waving vaguely out the window.

"Yeah, I'll give you that," Dean conceded. "Guess there must be apple trees someplace. But who's been planting wheat? No-freakin'-body. That's who."

Sam had to agree with him. It WAS sad. He got up and wandered over to sit on the edge of the couch at his brother's hip and leaned over him.

"Someday, I promise I'll get you pie, someplace, somehow," he told him.

Dean suspected that was an empty promise, but the fact he made it at all touched him.

"You know you're a big soft goober, right?" he remarked, handing him his bottle.

Sam took the bottle and stood it on the floor. "Uh-huh."

Then he leaned forward and pecked Dean on the cheek.

"Soft enough?" he asked. He wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

Dean was breathless for a second. Then he grabbed his brother, wrapping his arms around his neck and squashing his face in the crook of it. He was just drunk enough to get on board without protest. Sam pulled up a little and wrapped his arms around Dean's back, supporting him.

"Never did this enough," Dean whispered close to his ear. "Hugging, I mean. When you were here."

"I AM here," responded Sam, quietly.

"When you were here with me."

"I AM with you, Dean."

Dean pulled away, shaking his woozy head.

"When we were... When we were on the same side. Back in the day."

"Nope," Sam concurred.

Then he hugged his brother again, this time more tightly. And Dean hugged him back.

Sam was now laying on the couch bed beside his brother and Dean's leg had somehow wrapped itself over his, holding him there.

"Did you forgive me?" Sam ventured. "Honestly?"

"Almost," Dean replied.

Dean wanted to be straight with Sam. He had tried so hard, but he couldn't quite let go of the hurt Sam had caused him, going against everything he had said, doing what HE thought was right and Dean KNEW was wrong.

"Almost?" Sam didn't like the sound of that. "How almost?"

"Forgave you for the Apocalypse. That was NOT your fault. Some of it was on me too. Couldn't forgive you for stepping out on me, saying yes to Luci. Now that... That was wrong."

Sam turned his gaze away for a moment, avoiding Dean's eyes.

"Dean, it was... It seemed like I had no other choice. I was trying to save you... everyone."

Dean grabbed Sam's chin and dragged his face back to him.

"Oughta hate you. Even tried to," he growled. "But I suck at it."

"'Cause you still love me?" Sam asked, hopefully. He really needed confirmation.

"Because you're my brother. We're family," said Dean. The same old credo.

Then he took Sam by surprise and rolled him on his back. He combed his fingers through Sam's long hair and sighed. His head was fuzzy and he needed to say this.

"And because you're MY Sam and no one else comes close."

It occurred to Sam that Dean had gotten him where he would probably get guys he was going to make out with. And he thought he had THAT glint in his eye. Sam found he was strangely cool with it.

"This time it's real, Dean," he warned him. "I'm real."

Dean exhaled. "'Bout time."

~o~

At two o'clock in the morning, Dean was awoken by Sam shaking him. He was draped comfortably over the big guy, dishevelled and a little sweaty. He had a hazy recollection that getting friendly again might have rounded off with some very drunken mutual fondling, but he wasn't sure that he really WANTED to remember.

"What the- Sam? What's going on?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"A mermaid!" Sam whispered, in an awed tone.

Dean looked at him and wondered if he was still dreaming. What the heck was his brother rambling about?

"A mermaid?" he echoed, like he had never heard the word before.

"The thing. The image. What I saw, Dean," Sam gabbled, excitedly. "It was a freakin' mermaid."

Oh. Like that made sense. Dean wasn't any more enlightened.

"A mermaid. Dude, you mean like that fish stick Ariel?"

Sam was a little shocked that his brother even knew the Disney movie, or would admit to it if he did.

"Nah. The real thing. You know, half babe, half herring. It's what I saw."

"Oh come on, Sam," groaned Dean. "You tryna tell me Luci's scared of some silver-tailed hottie?"

Sam weighed up his comment. "You're right, man. It sounds off. But that's what I saw."

Dean plumped his thin pillows and made himself comfortable again.

"Not even in our brief, Sam. Mermaids are strictly Old World," he scoffed. "Not ONE of those scaly chicks EVER been sighted in the US. Outside of some freakin' kids' toon."

Feeling a little slighted, Sam exhaled and turned on his side away from his brother.

"Mermaids are NOT fairytale, Dean. They're real supernaturals with lore from Europe to Asia. And they don't spend all their time swooning over sailors. They're related to the Sirens of Ancient Greece and associated with storms, shipwreck and death by drowning. They're totally bad-ass."

"Yeah, yeah," mumbled Dean, casually turning over to spoon him. "So they're real. What're we gonna do about it?"

"We do some research?" Sam suggested.

He SO missed the internet. Even a library would have been good, but he knew Lucifer had enjoyed ordering every one burned, making a bonfire of everything man had built. That was something he HAD allowed Sam to see.

"The old fashioned way," remarked Dean.

"Yeah. Boots on the ground, I guess."

Sam felt the strongest urge to follow up this lead, no matter how vague. Dean knew it was probably a waste of time, but it wasn't like they had something else to do. If it kept Sam's mind off of their problems, Dean was up for it.

He drifted off to sleep already feeling a little better.

~o~

Over breakfast the following day, they talked about taking a tour of the nearby Great Lakes. Dean thought they could ask around and see if there had been any reports of merfolk activity. Sam was upbeat. Researching for a hunt, it was like old times.

"Dunno why, but that freakin' mermaid's image has gotten lodged in my head."

Ever since Dean had found him, his mind had been showing him images, clear snatches of memory. Before his brother had come along there had been only total bedlam in his skull. Now Dean was around he had begun to make some sense of the chaos. His big brother had always had that effect on him. Dean made sense of things.

When Lucifer had switched vessels out and Sam had woken up in the middle of nowhere, he had been lost, scared, desperate. All he could think about was staying hidden. Hiding from the people he had robbed of their loved ones, their whole lives. He wasn't afraid of dying. He was afraid of their payback. He was all alone and, without Dean, the world was a scary place.

Then Dean had come. Like he used to come find him, when Sam was a kid lost in another strange town they were passing through. And the craziness had passed. Now everything was starting to add up. Because a world with Dean in it made sense.

"Pictures of half-naked women got a way of doing that," agreed Dean. "We're gonna need transport. I'll work something out."

Detroit was starting to close in around him. He missed the open road. It would be good to get out of the city for a while, good for them both.

He and Sam were doing pretty good. They had gotten about as 'cozy' the previous night as the fog of whiskey would excuse. But Dean could tell himself that a little friendly manual stimulus wasn't such a big deal, even for brothers, as long as they NEVER talked about it. He was feeling more together than he had felt in a long time, and he was in the mood to indulge Sam.

Dean's plan was to finish rebuilding the bicycle he had been working on and take it over to Ted's. He would swap it with him for the loan of his motorcycle and enough fuel to get them lakeside. They could scout around there for whatever they needed to get them back home.

He didn't expect the mermaid thing was going to BE anything, but he wanted to humour Sam, who had a real bug up his butt about it. And, well, it was something to do. Something to do together. Like the good old days.

So, after an hour or so of hammering and cursing, Dean got the cycle put together and set off for Ted's. He left Sam poring over a crumpled old map of the region, the way it used to be pre-Apocalypse, searching for anything that sparked a memory.

He found something.

~o~

Ted had been a little reluctant to part with his machine. That was until Dean had let slip that he might have found himself a hunt. The older guy's eyes had lit up with nostalgia. Their little escapade with the bone-grinder had whetted his hunter's appetite again. He almost fell over himself to offer anything that would help, without actually volunteering to go along.

As Dean eased the bike through the rear door of his building, he all but walked into a sinister figure in a long, black, burqa-like garment. His knife was in his hand before he recognized the apparition as Trish in her foraging getup.

"Hi, Dean," she greeted him sweetly, from behind her mask.

Dean let out a tight breath.

"Didn't I tell you not to creep up on me, Trish? Hands of a trained killer here. OK?"

Trish giggled girlishly. "Ooh, sorry, Dean. I forget I have it on sometimes."

Dean shifted the bike to let her slip past, but before she disappeared she remembered something.

"Oh, by the by, Mom had another one of her moments with the Wyrd Sister last night."

"Oh?" Dean cocked one eyebrow expectantly.

"Wasn't much," Trish went on. "She gave her a name, is all. Jack Landing. But we don't know any Jack Landing."

"Me neither," admitted Dean. He waited a beat longer for more. "That it?"

"'Fraid so," she admitted. "Sorry. It's not much, is it?"

Dean shrugged. "You never can tell."

~o~

Back upstairs, Dean recoiled when Sam snatched the door open without waiting for him to identify himself.

"Sam!" he scolded him. "Told you about that. Jeez!"

"Oh, sure, Dean, sorry," Sam responded, not sorry in the least. "Gotta tell you something. I was looking at the map and I had this big deja-vu-y thing. It was so freakin' intense, it's gotta mean something."

Sam hurried back to the desk where he had the map spread out. He leaned over it, jabbing a finger at the big blue blob that represented Lake Erie.

"So what'd you come up with?" Dean flopped down on a chair.

Sam glanced up, his brows knitted. "So where's the bike?"

"Like I'm gonna lug the sucker up the stairs," Dean grouched. "It's safe. Don't you worry."

"Humph," grunted Sam. "So, uh, got a place. Blue Jack-"

"-Landing," Dean cut in. He chuckled when Sam looked surprised. "Ran into Trish downstairs. Patti got the same thing last night."

That news energized Sam. He pulled up a chair and sat down right by his brother.

"It's a flyspeck of a town on the shore of Lake Erie. Nothing much, even back in the day. But..."

Dean yawned. "But worth a look. For sure, when it's already gotten two votes."

They were so going on that road trip.

~o~

At first peep of day, before the raggedy birds had stirred in their nests, they were up and ready to set off on their journey to the lake. Dean dragged Ted's bike out of its hidey-hole and stowed their essentials on it. Sam made to climb on the bike but Dean stopped him short.

"Hey, hey," he objected. "We ride two up, YOU are on the bitch seat. OK?"

Sam gave him a bitchface like some big kid. Logic dictated that weight should be centralized to stabilize the bike. But this wasn't about logic.

"Dude, you gotta be kidding," he groused, pointing at himself. "Heavier than you, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm the oldest. And you're the girly one. OK? You," Dean indicated the rear seat. "On the back. Now."

Sam heaved a theatrical sigh and straddled the pillion seat. It wasn't worth arguing with Dean when he insisted on pulling rank. He couldn't win. Dean climbed on the front seat and started the engine, making Sam grab the sissy bar on reflex.

"You try and hold on that way, you ARE gonna fall on your ass, man," Dean snapped. "You wrap those freakishly long arms around ME. Not gonna bite."

So Dean wanted to make him the bitch? Well, he knew there was no point in acting out. Dean would sense his weakness and latch onto it, like a predator toying with his prey. Sam let go the bar and wrapped his arms tight around his brother's waist.

"Better," approved Dean, and he pulled out onto the street.

~o~

They made good time. The cracked blacktop was empty of traffic in either direction, as usual. Dean kept up their speed to the max, because they really did NOT want to be stopped out on the highway in the middle of nowhere by anyone, whether a troop of demons or a gang of desperate modern-day highwaymen.

Dean was enjoying the ride. It felt good to feel the wind in his face and watch the road burn up under his front wheel. It was good to taste the speed of an open road with nothing between them and the horizon. Dean had missed this, more than he wanted to admit.

Sam's arms felt good around him, heavy like body armour, warm like a blanket, tight like a child clinging to its mother. Dean could stay like this for days and want nothing more than his brother close. Something he had thought he had lost.

Sam tapped him on the shoulder.

"You never told me what happened to the Impala," he prompted, warm breath directly in his ear.

"No. I didn't." Dean pushed his foot down on the accelerator.

They would be there by noon.

TBC

* * *

A/N: What are they going to find in Blue Jack Landing? Mermaids? Maybe, maybe not. More soon.


	7. Lake

A/N: Dean and Sam are on the road to Lake Erie to scout around for possible mermaids.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 7: Lake) by frostygossamer

* * *

Blue Jack Landing was a nowhere place, as Sam had said. It obviously hadn't been much more than a jerkwater town even before the Apocalypse. It had downsized since then. What they really needed was some local skinny, but they couldn't exactly walk in some diner or bar and start asking questions, like they could in the old days. Amenities like that were all long abandoned and standing dilapidated and empty, windows shattered, doors hanging off of their hinges.

"So what now?" asked Sam, as they came to a halt on the dusty main street.

"Now you keep your head down and your eye on the bike," Dean ordered. "I'll take a look around, see who I can scare up. OK?"

Sam was about to protest that HE could do that, but then he remembered about the whole 'scare the living crap out of people by wearing the face of Lucifer' thing and backed down.

"Sure," he said, meekly. "I'll wait here. But don't be freakin' forever."

"Aw. Gonna miss me?" snickered Dean, before he quickly disappeared behind the first row of buildings.

Sam waited, sitting side-saddle on the bike enjoying the quietude. However, as minutes ticked by, he became increasingly anxious. Where was Dean? How long was this 'look around' going to take? What was he supposed to do if his brother didn't come back? Sam didn't even want to think about that one.

He was musing gloomily like this when his trained ears suddenly picked up the crunch of gravel from directly behind him. He froze for a second then, fast as lightning, he sprang from the bike and launched himself at the source of the noise. The startled oncomer was on his back in the dirt, with Sam's forearm across his throat, before he could draw breath let alone react.

Dean chose that precise moment to reappear from his recon mission.

"Hey, hey!" he shouted, running to Sam's aid. "The hell's going down here?"

Sam sat up with his knee still planted in his captive's chest.

"This mother was tryna sneak up on me," he snarled, angrily. He glared at the person he was using as a kneeler. "Man, you are so busted."

The guy he had captured looked all of ninety years old, and a sweet old grandpa at that. Sam immediately felt like the biggest heel. He stood up straight and extended a hand to help the guy to his feet. But his assailant only lay there on the ground, staring up at him with a terrified expression on his wrinkled face.

Dean stepped right in to elbow Sam out of the way and offer the oldster his hand instead.

"He's cool," he assured the guy. "NOT the freakin' Prince of Darkness. A look-alike. OK?"

The old guy accepted Dean's hand cautiously and allowed the younger man to help him up. He grumbled to himself as he dusted himself down. An action that was actually a little pointless as he was already covered in ingrained filth from head to foot. Clearly he had been sleeping rough a while, although he seemed surprisingly spry nonetheless.

"Jeez, sir, I am SO sorry," mumbled Sam, respectfully.

"Goddamn grizzly bear," the quasi-nonagenarian muttered under his breath.

Dean looked at Sam as he twirled the old guy's switchblade in his fingers. He had snagged the vicious weapon while he helped him to his feet.

"Yeah, well, you're gonna sneak up on strangers like some freakin' ninja, that's gonna happen."

The guy looked sheepish. "Gotta live, sonny," he complained.

Dean couldn't argue with that. He gave him an assessing glance.

"You look like a local," he guessed.

It seemed like they might have hit pay dirt informant-wise.

The old fossil nodded. "Born here in Blue Jack. Lived hereabouts my whole goddamn life."

Great. Just what they had been looking for.

"Then you'll know about the famous mermaid in the lake," Dean suggested.

The guy's brow furrowed. "What goddamn mermaid? Whaddya think this is? Disney World?"

Sam took up the line of inquiry.

"So there are NO local legends about a mermaid around here? Or merfolk? Or, uh, in the general area?"

He was starting to feel a little disappointed, not to mention a little stupid.

"Not that I ever heard of. Shame though. Coulda been a great draw for the tourists back when they ran boat trips out on the lake through the summertime."

"They ran boat trips? Out of here?"

"Yep. From a place on the jetty. Now if you'll return me my pig-sticker I'll be moving along."

The guy held his hand out to Dean for his property. Dean hesitated a moment then handed it over. The next stranger the oldster met might not turn out as easy going as them.

The old guy gave them a cheeky salute and scurried away.

"OK, so no mermaid," Dean commented.

Sam was staring out toward the lake with a faraway look in his eyes. Dean didn't like it when his brother looked so let down.

"Guess it wouldn't hurt to look around some more, since we're here," he remarked.

"Wanna go look at the jetty," Sam responded, without turning around.

Something was drawing him toward the water.

They rode the bike down toward the shore and quickly found the ramshackle structure, which hadn't seen a pleasure boat in a very long time. At the end of the landing was a small cabin, probably a ticket office for the tour operator.

They walked the bike along to take a look.

~o~

Inside the pleasure tour operator's cabin, the Winchesters found the remnants of a little tourist counter. The register had been ripped out and emptied, and a looted Coke machine lay on its back half blocking the door. Dean pushed his way past and looked around.

"Not much to see. Looks like anything worth a damn's already been jacked."

Sam stepped over the Coke machine and began to poke aimlessly around the cabin, picking things up here and there, and turning junk over with the toe of his shoe. After a minute he called to Dean, who was rifling the counter.

"Hey, Dean, look at this."

Around the walls of the cabin there hung framed photo-panoramas and articles on the town from the local press. Sam had found an interesting news item about some accident on the lake. Dean came over to peer at it with him.

"The 'Mermaid of Michigan'," Sam read. "She went down in the lake six or seven years ago, in a sudden freak squall."

"MERMAID of Michigan?" repeated Dean. "Huh."

"Under water, sealed in iron and hidden from light. Sound familiar?"

Sam was starting to feel excited about this thing again. He smashed the frame and removed the entire folded news page. He took it to the counter and spread it out. The rest of the article included a small map of the lake. The approximate position of the boat's sinking was marked with a red X.

"It says here every one of the ticket-holding passengers was safely brought back to land," Sam summarized. "The boat was such a freakin' rust bucket it wasn't worth raising. They left it to rot."

"Hmm," murmured Dean, unimpressed.

"Oh come on, Dean," complained Sam. "'Mermaid of Michigan'? That's gotta mean something."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "You think?"

Sam huffed at his brother's lack of enthusiasm. He continued to search around the cabin until he came up with a large hamper containing scuba gear.

"We should go dive on that wreck, Dean," he said, pulling out a wetsuit.

Dean shivered. The thought of plunging into the deep, murky waters of the lake did NOT appeal to him at all. But Sam had gotten his teeth into this now, even though he sensed his brother's reluctance.

"Wanna dive on the wreck, Dean."

Dean walked over and grabbed the suit, holding it up against his giant brother's chest. It was several sizes too small.

"Dude, not in this you won't."

Sam scoffed and brought out some breathing apparatus.

"I'm doing this, Dean," he insisted. It was a challenge.

Sam stubbornly set about checking through the air cylinders for one that was near enough full. Dean thought it was probably a waste of their time but he also knew, when his little brother set his mind on something, he was powerless to resist.

"Sure, Sam," he grudgingly agreed. "But not right now. It's already getting dark. Maybe tomorrow morning, first light, huh?"

They elected to spend the night in the cabin. It was as good a place as any.

~o~

It was soon dark in the tiny cabin poised over the still, chill waters of the lake. Dean lit a small fire in a metal trash can and fed it some of the debris littering the floor. He and Sam sat on their butts side by side, warming their cold hands and feet at the feeble flames. They had been there a while and they hadn't brought along anything to eat. Pretty soon Dean's stomach started to grumble.

Sam chuckled. "If I had me a rod and line I'd try and catch us a fish."

"Blue Jack?" suggested Dean.

Sam nodded. "Shame they'd be asleep right now."

"Fish sleep," chortled Dean. "Yeah, sure."

"Sure they do," asserted Sam. "It's a known fact."

"Yeah, well, YOU wanna get some sleep, Sam. You'll need to be on the ball tomorrow."

It was too cold and uncomfortable to lay down on the floor, so Sam leaned his head back against the counter and closed his eyes. Dean shuffled up closer to him and pulled Sam's big head down on his shoulder to make his brother more comfortable. Sam murmured appreciatively.

The night was silent aside from the distant noises of nocturnal nature. The only sound in the cabin was the sound of their synchronized breathing. It was a beautiful moment, a moment Dean would have given his soul for, a few days ago.

He closed his eyes and began to gently brush his fingers through Sam's wavy hair. Sam purred at his touch. Dean's other arm slipped across his brother's back, his hand cupping the round ball of his shoulder. It felt so good to pressed his cheek to the top of Sam's head. He laid his free hand on Sam's knee, squeezing it tenderly.

Dean had missed this. Not that he was used to getting so close with his brother. Not since when Sam was a little kid and needed his big brother near to feel safe in the dark. But even when he didn't anymore, even when Sam had gotten so big that Dean couldn't mother him any longer, Dean still knew that he could have if he had wanted to. Sappy Sam would have let him, if Dean had wanted to look like a wuss.

Then Sam was gone for good, and Dean couldn't ever have that again. He had had to thrown away all his dignity in a sad attempt to recapture that feeling for a fleeting moment with one pathetic substitute after another.

Now Sam was back and something inside Dean badly needed to be expressed somehow. Not in words, Dean's heart didn't do words, but somehow.

His hand had made its way down Sam's leg from his knee onto his inner thigh and was now resting in the warm cleft between his thigh and his crotch.

Sam stirred slightly as Dean's fingers moved against the denim of his jeans, brushing his zipper. His eyes snapped open. Guiltily, Dean tried to snatch back his hand, but Sam caught him by the wrist and held on.

"Dean," he said, abruptly.

Dean stared boldly back at him. Even in the flickering light of the fading fire, Sam could see his brother's eyes were glassy with saltwater. Sam's lips curved into a gentle smile.

"It's cold, Dean. Maybe there's some way we can warm ourselves up, huh?" he invited.

Dean untensed and exhaled slowly. There they were, alone together in a dark lonely place in an unfriendly world. The two of them. Together. Alone.

The ghost of a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I can think of one way."

Seriously, he could think of a thousand ways he needed to show Sam exactly how much he had missed him, but a little heat-sharing would suffice. And they would get nice and warm with their hands down each other's pants.

~o~

The following morning was a brighter, fresher, blue-skied reminder of a happier past. Dean found them an upturned rowboat, abandoned on the shoreline but still in serviceable condition. After hiding the motorcycle, they stowed the gear they needed in the boat and headed out for the watery grave of the 'Mermaid of Michigan'. The spot the newspaper article had marked with that X.

Sam, who had always been the stronger swimmer anyways, stripped down to his pair of underwear and checked out the breathing apparatus. Luckily, it seemed fine. They agreed that Dean would stay in the boat and act as lookout, or as Dean preferred to call it, Swim Coach.

Sam slipped on his goggles, stuck the scuba mouthpiece in his mouth, grinned at his brother around it and then disappeared below the waves. Dean looked around. He knew they would be visible from the land but he was hoping any onlookers would simply assume they were fishing and let them alone.

After a short while, Sam reappeared at the surface and swam the few strokes back to the boat. He took the mouthpiece out of his mouth.

"It's there," he gasped, excitedly. "The Mermaid. Right where they said it would be. I'm gonna go back down, take a proper look-see."

He disappeared again before Dean could protest.

Several long, lonely minutes followed. And then several more. Dean began to get antsy. What was keeping Sam down there? Was he OK? Was he in trouble? Was he floating lifeless and dead-eyed like some unfortunate shrimp caught up in the wreckage?

One minute later and Dean was pulling off his clothes and plunging into the deep, murky waters of the lake after all. He swam around aimlessly for a few seconds while his eyes adjusted to the dim, filtered daylight. Then he spotted the wreck and power-stroked toward it, his lungs straining from desperation and effort.

He was more than relieved to follow a line of bubbles back to Sam, who was exhaustively searching the wrecked boat, oblivious to his brother's concern. Dean swam up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Sam flinched and twisted around, ready for combat. He was amazed to find his brother right in his face.

Dean was so obviously almost at the end of his breath. Sam grabbed his arm and forced his mouthpiece in Dean's mouth. Dean choked slightly then drew in a deep, welcome lungful of air. He gave him a thumbs-up as he returned the scuba breather. Sam pointed at a locker at the back of the boat, signalling that he was interested in it. Then he pointed upward, indicating that they should return to the surface.

Dean broke the surface first, grabbing the side of their rowboat and hanging there panting. Sam popped up behind him, replacing his breathing gear with a cheesy grin.

"Dean, I'm gonna-" he began, but his brother enveloped him in a hug that almost squeezed the air out of his lungs.

"You don't EVER do that again!" Dean growled. "Never. OK? Hell, I thought you were-"

"I'm fine, Dean." Sam stopped him, gently. "Don't go getting all mushy on me. That's MY job."

Dean let him go and cuffed him on the ear instead. "Bitch."

Sam laughed, bobbing up to lean in the boat and feel around for some sort of tool. He came up with the crank handle for the missing outboard motor.

Waving it in the air, he told Dean, "I'm gonna go bring up what's in that locker," and immediately submerged.

One second later he popped back up, "Jerk," he said, grinning, and disappeared again.

~o~

It wasn't an easy matter, getting his clothes back on, when he was wet and sitting in a rocking boat, but Dean finally managed to make himself decent. So he was sitting in the rowboat fully dressed when Sam finally brought his prize to the surface.

It was a pretty large object wrapped up in something that looked like some sailcloth body bag, about the size of an adult human but kind of buoyant, which was strange in itself.

"The hell is that?" demanded Dean, leaning over to help haul the thing on the boat.

"No clue," answered Sam. "Kinda feels like a dead guy. Only I'm getting something weird from it."

Dean wasn't convinced. "DB? After all this time? Lake woulda had him."

Sam agreed. All those years the unlucky pleasure boat had lain in the muddy depths, lake-life or plain natural decay should have claimed anyone that had failed to be saved from the unhappy accident.

They rowed back to shore and manhandled the package into the cover of the ticket cabin.

TBC

* * *

A/N: So what is in the strange package? Any guesses? The mystery will be revealed next time. 


	8. Him?

A/N: You'll never guess what they've found. Or maybe you will?

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 8: Him?) by frostygossamer

* * *

Laying their soggy burden out on the floor of the shack, Sam and Dean stood back and looked down at it doubtfully. Dean was low on ideas.

"So whaddya think it is? Store mannequin maybe? Kinda dumpy though. Nothing mermaidy, that's for sure."

The lack of curvy marine loveliness was a disappointment. Sam was changing back into his dry clothes. He paused with one leg in his jeans.

"Expected to at least find some kinda Object of Power. A hoodoo, maybe, or a relic. Something we could use as a weapon against Lucifer. Or what the hell was all that about?"

"Yeah, something Luci couldn't handle," agreed Dean. "Or why didn't he come get it? Why not destroy it or lock it away someplace no one could ever find it?"

Sam concurred. "This doesn't feel that way. Got a different aura."

Slipping his second arm in his shirt sleeve, he walked over to stand by his brother.

"So, uh, you gonna open it?" suggested Dean, pointedly. He wasn't sure he liked the look of this thing at all.

Sam puffed out a snort and hunkered down beside the bundle. Using his sharp blade, he quickly slit the canvas bag top to toe and folded back the fabric. Inside lay the body of a shortish, chubby guy with crinkly eyes, short steel-gray hair and a very, very long white beard. He was dressed like a tourist: Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, sandals, man-purse.

"He look familiar to you?" Dean asked, getting a strange flash of recognition. "Wonder how the Coast Guard missed him. He look like your typical stowaway?"

He bent over and touched the sopping beard which immediately came loose in his hand. It had only been held on by loops of wire which hooked over the guy's ears.

"Who is this bozo? Santa freakin' Claus?" he demanded.

He stood up straight and brandished the dripping whiskers at his brother.

"Santa Claus is fictional, Dean," Sam objected. "Like Freddy Krueger and the Easter Bunny."

"Freddy isn't real?!" snarked Dean, making an unhappy face.

Sam dug in the guy's pockets and came up with a driver's license. He prised apart the damp pages and located the guy's details.

"Says here his name's Hooper. No, Hoover," he read out. "Uh, that's Joe Hoover."

"Joe Hoover," Dean muttered. He was trying hard to remember where he had heard that name before. "Joe freakin' Hoover?"

Suddenly a light came on in his head and he laughed a short bark of a laugh.

"Joe Hoover?" he repeated, getting the joke Sam was obviously missing. "Seriously? The Boss? The Guy Upstairs? The Big Kahuna?"

Sam scowled at him. "Man, the hell are you talking about?" he snapped.

Dean turned up his eyes like Sam was slow or something.

"Jehovah, yeah?" he answered. "This is Cas' deadbeat daddy." He poked the body suspiciously with the toe of his boot. "Turns out he wasn't so much deadbeat as stiff. Well, at least now we know why Luci was scared crapless."

"Don't think he's dead, Dean," objected Sam, standing up.

Dean shrugged. "Seems dead enough to me."

Sam looked doubtful. "Yeah, but... Can he even die? I mean, isn't he supposed to be immortal? Like Death and Time and... and..."

"Taxes?" Dean contributed. "Like I'd know."

He toed the bundle again and, this time, the brothers had to recoil as the occupant grumbled and curled up onto his side.

"Whew, guess you've gotten your answer," said Dean. "Looks like he was just taking a power nap down there."

~o~

When Joe Hoover finally woke, sat up, stretched and looked around, Sam and Dean were sitting on boxes sipping the last drop of Dean's whiskey from a flask. They had needed that little something to warm them up after their freezing dip. And they hadn't been wasting their time either. They had spent the last half hour warding the place with anti-angel sigils and marking a devil's trap around the newcomer, to be extra sure.

The guy stared at them suspiciously, with one eye squeezed tight. "What're you?" he demanded.

"What's with the one-eyed glare, Pops?" asked Dean. "You're supposed to know what WE are, right? They call it omniscient, uh, -ness."

"Omniscience," corrected Sam.

The guy sighed and smoothed down his damp silver hair with both hands.

"Call me 'Joe', boys. And I was gonna say, 'What're you doing here?' You mud-, uh, mortals aren't scheduled to come get me until AFTER the Apocalypse is over and done."

Dean lifted his eyes to heaven. "The Apocalypse IS over and freakin' done, old man."

Joe laughed. "Oh yeah. Very funny," he chuckled. "You totally said that like you meant it."

"I MEANT it," snapped Dean. "The damned Apocalypse is DONE. The human race is DONE. EVERYTHING is freakin' done."

Grinning, Joe tapped the side of his nose all-knowingly.

"Oh, but you don't believe that."

Dean was dumbstruck. He took a step back, like he needed to stop himself hauling off and punching the old guy right in the face. Sam patted him on his arm to calm him down and assumed the lead in the conversation.

"We believe it because it happened," he said, calmly. "I was right there on the front line," he added, pointing to himself. "Ex-vessel of Lucifer, yeah?"

Still grinning jovially, Joe stretched out his arms to both Sam and Dean to be helped up. Dean chose to ignore him, so Sam grabbed both his hands and wrenched him up onto his feet. The guy dusted himself down and felt at his bare chin.

"Where'd it go?" he demanded, his eyes searching around for his false chin-warmer.

Sam snatched the long cotton-fluff beard up from the floor, where Dean had dropped it, and held it out to him. He took it with a bow, squeezing it out before hooking it over his ears and then smoothing it down over his belly.

"That's better," he said, with a chuckle. "Image is everything."

The Winchesters were looking anything but happy. Dean was sitting against the counter with his arms stubbornly folded and Sam had a sour look on his face like a pickle.

Joe composed his own features sagely.

"Guess it wasn't much fun," he commented, full of sympathy. "For you poor humans, I mean."

Dean simply quirked an eyebrow. He was sure he smelled a faint insincerity in the superior being's tone. A faint condescension, like they were kids... or monkeys.

Joe made a guilty face. "Oops."

~o~

Dean had stormed outside to get a breath of fresh lake air. He felt like he was ready to explode over Joe's attitude. Sam left the jolly old codger in the cabin and went out to join his brother. Dean was gazing unseeingly over the serene waters of the lake.

"You think he's for real?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. Yet another reason to regret junking that amulet. Who knew they were ever going to need to see if it would burn hot? All the same he had to admit that, in some visceral way, he did believe.

"Yeah," he answered. "Somehow, uh, yeah, I do."

The guy had a redolent genuineness about him that neither of them could deny. They could both feel it radiating off of him like pure morning sunlight.

"He's a total douche," Dean added, acidly.

Sam could see where he was coming from. "He's a god. Guess that goes with the job title."

"A?" commented Dean, blowing out a huff. "A god? Only suppose to be the freakin' Alpha and Omega, that's what."

He glared out across the lake for a while longer, mouthing vague curses to himself.

"So, uh, how do we get back to Detroit?" Sam asked, breaking the silence. "Three guys, one bike."

Dean gave a bitter chuckle. "If we can even go back."

He was starting to regret having come. He should have stayed in his apartment where it was quiet and safe, and he had good neighbours and a great shower. He had known in his gut that this hunt would turn out a bad idea.

"We need transport. A truck maybe?" suggested Sam.

Dean grumbled. "OK, so where we gonna find a truck? A truck that runs? And we're gonna steal a truck from someone who needs it to stay alive? Seriously?"

Gone were the days when 'Grand Theft Auto' signified nothing more than an annoying insurance claim for the vehicle's legal owner.

"Well..." Sam was out of ideas.

The door opened and Joe stepped out on the jetty. Sam stared at him, baffled.

"We, uh, WARDED the damn place," he pointed out.

"Oh, that," said Joe, glancing back at the door. "Not an angel. Not a demon. Kinda omnipresent anyways, so..."

He joined them in staring out at the lake for a second then... WHOOSH!

~o~

WHOOSH! They were sitting in a beat-up four-door pickup that had been ditched at the side of the road about 300 yards along from the jetty. Dean was in the driver's seat, naturally, with Sam on the passenger side. Joe was in back.

"What the-?!" gasped Dean, slightly disoriented by the sudden relocation.

His past experience of angel 'flying' had not prepared Dean's vitals for the after-effects of divine telekinesis. Something inside objected noisily. Sam chuckled and Dean glared at him. Sam had to smirk because he was back in shotgun where he belonged.

"He found us a truck, Dean," he told his brother, redundantly.

"Huh!" grumbled Dean. "Some old freakin' crate that won't start."

"Try it," suggested Joe, from the backseat.

The key was still in the ignition, so Dean gave it a turn. Amazingly, the engine purred into life without even a splutter of protest. Impressed, Dean checked the fuel gauge.

"Full tank of gas too. Nice job."

He carefully nudged the vehicle backward out of the ditch and drove down to the jetty. They left Joe in the truck while they picked up their things from the cabin. Sam carried their crap while Dean walked the bike, then Sam helped him lift it in the back.

They were soon leaving Blue Jack Landing behind and speeding back to Motor City.

~o~

Dean wanted to get them back to Detroit before it turned dark. It wasn't safe, if it was ever safe, to be out on the streets of the city after dusk. So he put his foot to the floor and concentrated on getting them there fast.

Sam was getting no more than grunts from Dean when he tried to make conversation, so he turned his attention to their new friend.

"So, uh, Joe, how come you of all people, uh, beings got trussed up and stuffed in a locker on a sunken boat at the bottom of a lake?"

Sam was genuinely intrigued. Joe settled down to fill them in.

"Well, Sam, it's not an easy job running the entirety of existence single-handed."

"Single-handed?" queried Sam. "And the angels are for what? Decoration?"

"I am the One True God, Creator and Ruler of the Universe. Omnipotent, of course, but I love to delegate."

"One True God? In the Judeo-Christian tradition, right?" Sam was always a stickler for the facts.

"Sure," Joe admitted, good-naturedly. "Other brands ARE available. I could talk aspects, interpretations all day but, hey, this is Joe Hoover telling the story. OK?"

Sam bobbed his head and let him continue with his spiel.

"There I was, ruling my socks off twenty-four seven three-sixty-five. Guess I was due a little ME time."

"You took a vacation?" interpreted Sam, a little shocked.

"A little R&R," agreed Joe. "A sabbatical, you could say. I decided I'd take a swing around the natural wonders of my creation. Before you troublesome humans finally ruined everything with your ridiculous industrialization of every damned place."

"I totally get that," Sam concurred.

The younger Winchester had always been turned on to environmental concerns. He had often insisted that Dean make a detour so they could enjoy the beauty of nature. Dean, however, preferred to take in sights like the 'World's Biggest Ball of Twine' or the 'America's Largest Coffee Pot'.

Joe went on. "I found myself the perfect vessel, an elderly Jewish Canadian grandfather and retired thespian. We did all the tourist attractions: Great Barrier Reef, Mount Everest, Amazon Rainforest, Grand Canyon. Finally ended up at the Great Lakes. So I thought I'd take me a little lake cruise, mingling with regular mortals," he explained. Leaning toward Sam conspiratorially, he added, "I love to overhear their awe."

"So it was an incognito deal?"

"Uh-huh. The last thing I was expecting when I boarded the 'Mermaid of Michigan' was to be bopped on the noggin by a common thief, wrapped in a old sail and crammed in a storage locker." Joe laughed. "Still, no harm done. I guess they woulda found me when the boat came back to shore."

"Only it never did," put in Sam. "The freak squall?"

"Indeed. The squall. Well, you can't go knocking out an almighty entity like Yours Truly without disturbing the very equilibrium of nature. A little windstorm was the least you could expect."

"So the Mermaid never came back to land. You've been down there ever since?"

"Mm-hmm," agreed Joe. "Very peaceful, actually. Cool, dark, silent. Like yoga, calming."

Dean's only comment was a snort.

"But, of course, I knew, after the Apocalypse, mankind would be coming to get me," Joe reasoned. "They were going to need me again. So I only had to wait it out. You guys were a little ahead of time."

"Dude," said Sam. "You're lucky we made it at all."

~o~

They arrived back at Dean's place barely before dark. Dean drove the truck into the alleyway behind the building and they got out. As they started to walk toward the back entrance, Sam noticed that Dean had left the key in the pickup's ignition.

"Not gonna take the key?" he asked Dean, assuming his brother had forgotten to take it with him.

"Nah," replied Dean. "The gas is low. No one's gonna take it unless they've fuel to spare. And, if they have, good luck to them."

Sam shouldered his duffle. "OK."

They gathered at the bottom of the stairwell. They had a long climb up to Dean's floor and they were tired from the drive, but as Dean set his first foot on the bottom stair... WHOOSH!

~o~

WHOOSH! They were standing in the middle of Dean's apartment on the top floor.

"Jeez!" snapped Dean, clutching his stomach. "Freakin' worse than Angel Air. Give a guy some warning?"

Joe shrugged and chuckled. "Hey, you quit praying I'll quit answering."

"We coulda made the whole trip like that, right?" asked Sam.

"And missed out on the quality guy time?" chuckled Joe.

He checked out their new locale. "Nice place you got here," he commented, without a trace of irony.

"We need a minute," Sam told him, dragging Dean aside.

Sam wanted a quiet confab with his brother while Joe gave the apartment the once over. He and Dean stepped out on Dean's 'balcony'. The city was already almost entirely blacked out. No one wanted to attract attention by burning a light visible outside. By contrast the demonic HQ building was like an infernal beacon in the darkness. The night was clear, the stars above more visible than they had been in a hundred years.

"So what do we do now?" Sam asked Dean, in a hoarse whisper.

"What do we do?" echoed Dean, angrily. "Guess we make his ass fix the Apocalypse. That's what."

Behind them, they heard a mumbled, "Ah, there it is," as Joe disappeared into the bathroom.

"And how?" Sam demanded. "How exactly are we gonna talk the Almighty into saving mankind for us this time, huh?"

Dean couldn't say. "God knows, Sam," he responded, without thinking.

"Yeah right," agreed Sam. "He knows. He knew about the Apocalypse all the freakin' time and he didn't do a damn thing. Not one thing. He was 'on vacation'. What makes you think he'll do anything now? Joshua said he didn't give a gnat's crap, basically. Seems the guy was right."

After a moment, they heard the splash of the shower running, and Joe began to belt out 'How Great I Art' in an Elvis-style baritone.

Dean slumped a little, leaning back against the wall. "The guy's a total fail."

Sam let out a tight breath, leaned on his elbows against the side of the cradle and stared out over the devastated metropolis.

"He's gotta be good for something," he thought aloud. "He's freakin' Joe Hoover, for God's sake."

"He's about as much use to you and me as a wet fart in a freakin' forest fire," commented Dean, indignantly. "So much for a secret freakin' WMD against Lucifer."

Then Sam had an idea. "Not a WEAPON maybe." He straightened up. "He's no use to US, but he means one helluva lot to his kids."

Dean followed his thinking. "Hostage?"

"What wouldn't Luci give in return for the safe return of his daddy?" expanded Sam.

Dean had to go along with that reasoning. What wouldn't HE have given for the return of John? He really could have used having John Winchester still around.

"I'm on it," he said, turning to go back inside. "Saved Dad's journal from the crapstorm. Maybe it's got an appendix on god-wrangling."

TBC

* * *

A/N: Please note this is my version of the Supernatural-verse God. No offense intended. This is meant as a sympathetic portrayal.


	9. Real

A/N: While Joe Hoover has himself a shower Sam and Dean have been discussing him 'outside'.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 9: Real) by frostygossamer

* * *

Dean re-entered the main room via the window just as Joe came out of Dean's bathroom dressed in a pink terrycloth bathrobe and a floral shower cap. Things Dean didn't even own. A warm cloud of steam followed him out into the main room.

Seeing Dean wearing a puzzled frown, Joe explained airily, "Fixed your hot water, by the way. There wasn't any."

Dean didn't know whether to be pleased or pissed at the guy's presumption.

"Stay outta my head," he griped.

Joe chuckled and plonked himself down on Dean's couch bed. Finding it surprisingly comfy, he bounced a little to test the squeaky springs. Dean had to feel a little awkward, remembering the drunken fumbling he and Sam had gotten up to on that very couch a couple nights before. He coughed uncomfortably and avoided Joe's eyes, instead watching Sam as he climbed in the window.

"Oh, I like this," Joe said, approvingly. "It oozes kinduva, uh, lurve vibe," and he winked at them. "No secrets, boys," he commented. "Omniscient, right?"

Dean booked it to go look out John's journal before he could choke with embarrassment, leaving Sam to chat to their guest.

"So," Sam began, dryly. "Don't suppose you would consider, I dunno, reversing the Apocalypse for us?"

Joe gave him an indulgent smile.

"Look. I don't play favourites. It's not good parenting. The kids had themselves a little beef. To tell you the truth Michael was always kinda resentful of his brother. So I left them to duke it out. It would be kinda unsporting of me to get back and call a foul now. Don't you think?"

"Yeah. What I thought," muttered Sam under his breath, as he pulled up a chair and sat down.

Joe surveyed him with a beady eye. "You've been wondering about something, Sam."

"Have I?" Sam asked.

He wasn't any happier than Dean about this guy scanning his mind.

"You're wondering if I've played a part in all this. Chuck, for instance."

"Chuck?" Sam repeated, disingenuously.

Sam had run into mind-readers before. He knew better than to give them anything to work with.

"Chuck Shurley," said Joe. "You're wondering if I really spoke through him. Was he really my True Prophet or was it all some kinda magic trick?"

This guy knew his stuff.

"Hmm, yeah. You gave him all the things he wrote about us? Seriously?"

Sam had always wondered how Chuck had gotten tuned in the his source of inspiration.

"Sure I did. Been watching you Winchesters for the longest time. This one day it occurred to me your lives would make one kick-ass novel..."

"Damn!" grunted Sam. "Glad you were entertained."

"Oh, you were a truckload of fun." Joe grinned. "A real page-turner. Could NOT put you down."

Sam wasn't exactly overjoyed to hear Joe had found their tragic lives so diverting. His pinched expression made Joe chuckle.

"You know, when I found Chuck he was simply a washed-up lush. He was more than willing to become a vessel." Joe chuckled. "He called me his 'muse'."

That silly mistake obviously tickled him. Sam wasn't too thrilled with Joe. Chuck had been a good friend to the Winchesters.

"So he WAS your vessel? You sure that was what he signed up for? A muse isn't supposed to actually BLOW your mind."

Joe sensed Sam's anger and attempted to explain his behaviour. It was no biggie from his point of view.

"Well, he wasn't exactly vessel material. Not prime stock like you and your brother. You see this almighty being that I am is way too much for the average human mind to handle. You can go insane, if I stick around too long. I could only enter Chuck for short, short periods of time. Hardly enough to ghost the draft of my opus." Joe pouted. "Even so, I guess I did damage him a little. Big shame. Luckily, he assumed it was the alcohol."

"Very fatherly," Sam commented, his tone sarcastic.

"Oh, I WAS fatherly," Joe defended himself. "Sent him right on home, the moment we got finished."

Sam had a good idea what Joe was implying by 'home'. The same place the angels did. That snow job they called Heaven.

"And you moved on to this poor schmuck you call Joe Hoover?"

Joe chuckled. He clearly found his joke pseudonym a pretty funny gag.

"THIS guy? This sweet guy was an over-the-hill ham actor. Ego the size of a planet. I fitted right in. In fact-"

Then he froze in mid sentence like a video on pause.

A second passed. Sam waved a hand in front of the old guy's face. There was no reaction.

"The hell?" he murmured.

Dean appeared from his storeroom with John's journal in his hand, opened to a page in the back. His eyes were wide as saucers.

"Totally did NOT expect that to work," he gasped.

"What did you use?" asked Sam interestedly, getting up to peek at the journal.

"This." Dean jabbed a finger at the page. "It's a REAL ancient Hebraic spell to bind a minor Semitic deity. Guess Joe Hoover here still has an original backdoor. Who knew?"

"Makes sense," agreed Sam. "The big guy had a pretty open-source agreement with his first-adopters. Now what?"

"Now." Dean's eyes narrowed as a plan formed. "Now we contact Joe's biggest fan."

~o~

Three days later...

Dean stood at one end of the four-lane highway overpass with Sam at his right, where he belonged, and the crossroads demon who had gotten their message to Lucifer on his left. The lowly black-eyes cowered, clearly overawed to be in the presence of his dark overlord and master.

Lucifer, rocking his new blond behemoth, and his seething black hoards were stationed opposite, occupying the far side of the up thrown and broken down blacktop that struggled to run beneath the overpass. Lucifer agitatedly paced back and forth.

The Winchesters stood foursquare, both hands firmly gripping their shotguns, their posture effusing a stalwart determination that looked way more confident than they actually felt. Dean had missed Sam's brotherly six. It felt good to have him back at his side. The older Winchester had had to deal with the disaster-fest too long on his own.

"Sam, this better work," he hissed between his teeth, without turning his head.

"Gonna work, Dean," Sam assured him, though he felt like his stomach was tangled up in an anxious knot.

Behind them, Ted sat quivering in the driver's seat of the pickup, with an immobilized and heavily chained Joe Hoover propped up sullenly in the backseat.

After another tense minute, Lucifer stepped forward just close enough to be heard.

"OK, kiddos," he shouted. "You wanna hand over Daddy Dearest, huh? Then maybe I WON'T stomp your bloodied and mutilated carcasses into the ever-loving mud."

Dean didn't doubt that Lucifer was being horribly literal. He ground his jaw, determined not to be the first to blink. Unfortunately, there ensued a slightly embarrassing kerfuffle from the truck, as Ted jumped down and ran for his life.

Lucifer threw his head back and guffawed.

"Didn't come here to hand him over," shouted Dean, with a growl in his voice.

That surprised Lucifer. He had been led to believe they were there to participate in a handover. Culpable minions would pay for that mistake later.

"No?" he asked, with a skeptical eyebrow. "You came here to surrender? Sweet gesture, Deano."

Dean was unamused. "Too late to freakin' surrender, Luci. War's long over."

That wasn't the submissive response Lucifer wanted to hear.

"Then what the hell ARE we here for?" the fallen angel angrily demanded.

It was Dean's turn to laugh derisively, and it was well-nigh a convincing laugh until it turned into a cold-eyed smirk.

"We're here to offer you the deal of the freakin' millennium."

He turned and gestured to the nervously cringing crossroad's demon on his left. The snivelling black-eyes unrolled a short parchment scroll and held up the document for Lucifer to see. It was a contract, written in a large hand, in human blood.

Winchester blood, the most indelible ink of all.

~o~

Three days earlier...

Right after Dean had successfully put the Almighty Joe Hoover on hold, the Winchesters manhandled his rigid body into the backroom Dean used for storage. Sam was impressed when he got a good look at the quantity of trade goods Dean kept behind the door that was normally secured with a big-ass padlock.

"Wow! Talk about pirate's treasure cave."

Dean wriggled his eyebrows. "Awesome, huh?"

"Dude, I never knew you were such a packrat," Sam chuckled.

"Yeah? Well, the way I see it, if it's worth jack it's mine," said Dean. "Barter's how we live now. Not like anyone can pop out to the store, right? And THIS guy's gotta be the biggest tradable of them all."

They stacked Joe in the corner of the room, on top of a big pile of what Sam noted with interest were medical encyclopaedias, and returned to the main room. Dean carefully fixed the padlock back in place.

"OK," he said, clapping his hands together. "Now we come up with a plan."

~o~

They stayed up late into the night thrashing out ideas. But nothing they came up with was really jumping out. Pretty soon the first faintest signs of dawn's arrival changed the sky from black to red. They were both beat. Sam caught Dean fighting back a yawn.

"We're spinning our wheels here. Go get some sleep, Dean. Joe's not going anyplace."

Dean shook his head once. "Not now." His little brother did not get to tell him when to go to bed.

"Yeah. NOW." Sam stood up and grabbed his brother, pushing him toward the couch.

Dean lay down reluctantly, one arm thrown across his eyes. Sam sat on the edge of the couch and looked down at him. After a second he leaned forward and made to kiss him on the lips.

"Don't!" Dean snapped, turning his face away.

Sam tsked. "Won't let me kiss you? Didn't we trade hand jobs already?"

But Dean was sober. This time he couldn't blame whiskey for letting his feelings take control. And they weren't shivering by the lake, alone in the dark. There were no excuses.

"Not the same thing," Dean objected. "Jerking a guy off is not... personal."

Sam had to laugh aloud. To Dean maybe that was true, but to him it had seemed damn personal.

"Man, you have seriously been with way too many bad women."

He let his hand stray toward Dean's belt buckle. Dean immediately shot him a glare and placed a warning hand over his.

"Listen, Dean," Sam tried to explain. "Lucifer... When he was riding me he made me do..." He paused. "Wanna say... Whatever YOU need... That's fine. Whatever works for you, I'm cool with it."

If he could give his brother any comfort at all, he was more than willing.

Dean looked away. "You don't understand," he murmured, almost inaudibly.

"I understand," Sam insisted. He really thought he did.

Dean sighed unhappily. "You don't. You can't."

"I do understand, Dean. And it's fine. You tryna tell me you gave yourself to random strangers because they reminded you of me and that DOESN'T mean you want me?"

Dean slapped his hand away tetchily. "Needed you. Not the same."

Sam treated him to a gentle smile. "Well, Dean, I'm here now."

Dean turned on his side, hiding his face from him in the back of the couch.

"You got it wrong again, like always," he grumbled.

Sam huffed. Dean could be an uncommunicative dick sometimes. His whole life, Sam had never gotten a handle on exactly why he had to be so closed off, even from him.

"Then tell me," he suggested, quietly.

Dean was silent and Sam wondered whether he had said the wrong thing, yet again. Then Dean flopped onto his back and looked up at him. Watery tears were already pooling in his green eyes. He tried to blink them away.

"This is freakin' hard for me, Sam," he croaked.

He was doing his best not to let his voice sound as if he was about to weep like a girl. That was so not how Dean Winchester worked. Sam could almost hear the shutters shuddering, ready to come down around his brother's heart.

Sam leaned away a little. "It's OK, Dean. You don't gotta tell, if it's too much."

He was resigned by now to never being allowed to share the elder Winchester's inmost feelings. But Dean knew there was something that Sam really ought to know, however painful it was to admit.

"Yeah, I do. Because you don't get it. You can't. I did it because, with those guys, I could make believe, for a time, that it was something... real."

Sam started to rub his brother's arm gently. He knew the poor guy never had believed he deserved to love anyone.

"I know it, Dean, I know. You're a good guy. You save people. Hell, you're some kinda hero. You don't like to use the word, but you LOVE people. You totally do."

"Shut up," snapped Dean. "Shut the hell up."

How could his college-boy brother be so damn slow? He pushed Sam away and sat up abruptly, running both hands across his spiky hair, mussing it.

"That's not what I meant, dumb-ass," he muttered, irritably. "Not even close."

"Then what?" asked Sam, genuinely wanting to know now.

Dean would have to take a run at it.

"I meant I could pretend like they loved ME, kinda. Because, damn it, in all my life, all my freakin' life, nobody has EVER really loved me. Nobody. Except you, Sam. Only you... And I lost that."

Then he turned his head away, so his brother wouldn't see him break down.

Sam's persnickety brain wanted to suggest their Mom and Dad, but even he could see that was so not what Dean had in mind. Sure your parents love you. THEY have to, so they don't count. If there was no one else it made Dean a loser. One other person would save him from that.

Dean continued to explain quietly.

"You were my rock, Sam. I walked into people's lives and right out again without leaving a trace. They went back to their everyday lives and that guy they picked up in that bar, that guy who saved them from the freakin' monster that ate their damn cat, vanished from their memory. They didn't WANT to remember. YOU were the only one that stuck around. Lucifer took from me the one freakin' thing I could never replace. YOU."

He put his hand on Sam's big paw, which had paused from rubbing on his arm.

"Barely survived without you, Sammy. Been running on empty since you walked out on me."

Sam inhaled involuntarily. He remembered how he had watched his brother grow ever more desperate, trying to halt the approaching Apocalypse almost single-handed. And he vividly remembered the moment he realized that only sacrifice could save them. One sacrifice. Himself.

It had been a no-brainer. He walked out on Dean to go save the world. He hadn't expected his tough-as-nails brother to crumble without him. Dean had always been so... indomitable. Sam believed HE was the weak-ass one who couldn't make it alone.

"Me too, Dean," he whispered. "I was a shell even before Lucifer."

That last face-off with his brother had left Sam bruised so bad. He knew he was nothing more than a dead weight to Dean. He just wanted to end it. He had almost succeeded in all the wrongest ways.

"Never shoulda left, Dean. Can't believe I coulda been so freakin' dumb. Shoulda listened to you. Man, you are NEVER wrong."

That made Dean shift to look him in the face, that fondly loved face. The big guy with the adoring kid brother smile.

"That's for sure, asshat," he mock-scolded him.

He slipped a hand behind Sam's neck and drew him down into a tender chaste kiss, right on the lips.

Sam chuckled. "Second thoughts?"

"Time we stopped with the thinking," Dean replied.

And he kissed him again, this time with a little more intent, until Sam pulled away.

"I DO love you, man," Sam said, the sincerity in his voice almost tangible. "You gotta know that. And don't think I'm the only one. Everyone you ever saved loves you too. We're a big fandom." He chuckled. "I'm just a total Dean-freak, is all."

"Also time we stopped with the talking," Dean commented.

He had always communicated best with his body. He shut Sam up by yanking him down onto the couch and rolling him over. It was a move he had used before, but never with the right guy, until now.

"Dean, God is next door," Sam hissed.

"When wasn't he?" shrugged Dean.

Sam grinned up at him. This was going better now. Dean smiled back and pulled their blanket up over their heads, hiding them from reality. Sam grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it off over his head, tossing it away.

"You wanna take off something?" he asked Dean.

Dean allowed Sam to relieve him of his shirt too and they lay there, naked chest against naked chest, letting their fingers explore the familiar landscape of each other's skin.

TBC

* * *

A/N: Aw, Sam is starting to heal Dean's pain at last. More soon. 


	10. Audience

A/N: With Sam's big brain on the case they're sure to come up with a solution. Turns out the problem is something Sam is all too familiar with.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 10: Audience) by frostygossamer

* * *

Sam had been laying awake for an hour studying the cracks on the ceiling, like they were a map of some far-off world. His mind had been racing so much it woke him up. Half-formed images and jumbled thoughts swirled around in his cranium. Memories of his years as Lucifer's host, memories he had tried to suppress since the moment he had woken up himself again, horrified in a pile of rotting corpses. When Lucifer had decided to smoke out of his body and leave him alive and, for the first time in so long, totally, terribly aware.

The first word to crystallize in his foggy mind had been, as always, "Dean?!"

Back then he had believed Lucifer's vile lie that Dean was dead. Now his big brother was laying beside him in only his boxers, safe, sound and sleeping peacefully. Sam finally felt like he had his anchor back. For too long he had been drifting aimlessly without purpose or focus, without any meaning or even reason to draw breath.

He knew that feeling too well and, what's more, he knew he hadn't been alone in feeling that way. Lucifer, once fair-haired favourite of the Almighty, was cast down into Hell as cruel and unusual punishment, simply because he had gotten a little swollen-headed. Lucifer had felt the same way as Sam: lost, anchorless, desperate.

Sam shook the thought out of his head. There he went again feeling empathy for the Prince of Darkness. Stockholm Syndrome maybe? He turned and observed his carelessly slumbering brother for a moment, before sticking him in the ribs with his elbow.

"Wha- What? Whassup?" grumbled Dean, rubbing a hand over his sleepy face.

"Dean?" Sam chuckled affectionately at his dopey confusion. "Got an idea."

"You got a freakin' idea," Dean mumbled, starting properly to wake up.

"Yep," said Sam. "And you're not gonna like it."

~o~

So there they were on the overpass waiting.

Sam was bravely resisting the urge to throw up, partly from nerves and partly because being within spitting distance of Lucifer again summoned up horrors he would have rather forgotten. They had been standing there over an hour and Dean was getting antsy too. He turned to his brother.

"Beginning to think this is maybe a real BAD idea," he hissed.

"It's an AWESOME idea, Dean," Sam hissed back. "Also our ONLY idea."

Dean had to acknowledge that. If this didn't work they were going to end up like a couple bugs squashed on the sidewalk, diabolic collateral damage.

He turned to face front again only to find Lucifer right in his mug. The Lord of Chaos was glowering down at him darkly. His new vessel was huge and broad as a barn door. He could give Sam a good ten inches in height, but Dean was used to cold-staring a giant.

"Back. The hell. Off," he said, calmly.

Lucifer's eyes bulged and, for a time, he didn't look like he was going to budge. Then he grunted and took a step backward.

"You have my Father. Hand him over now," he bellowed, jerking his chin toward the old guy tied up in the truck.

Dean barked out a laugh. "Nuh-uh. Not your daddy. Guy goes by the name 'Joe Hoover'."

Lucifer looked at him like he was an idiot, utterly perplexed. Dean smirked and deliberately broke eye contact like he didn't give a damn. Lucifer rumbled darkly.

"I am here," came Sam's voice from behind him.

Lucifer wheeled around swiftly and glared at the younger Winchester.

"What kinda smart-ass trick is this?" he demanded.

"No trick," answered Sam, his face wreathed in beatific smiles. "It is I, your Father."

An echo of his words hung in the air. Sam pulled himself up to his full height. There was something about him that was clearly no longer merely human, something greater, something magnificent. The very air around him seemed to hum with electricity.

A warm breeze blew his dark, wavy hair around his head like a wild halo. His eyes glowed like hot coals in their sockets, laserlike, penetrating. Inside his body, God's essence thrummed like an all-powerful dynamo. He seemed to tower above the entire assemblage, even Lucifer.

The archangel of Hell inhaled. "Ah..."

~o~

Two days before...

As Sam had guessed, Dean really did NOT like his idea.

They were out on the 'balcony' again, the first pink rays of dawn sneaking over the horizon. Dean really needed coffee. Shame there was not a bean left.

"First of all," said Sam. "We get Joe Hoover outta his vessel in there. Force him to smoke out."

Dean pondered that and nodded his head. "Sounds good to me."

He was starting to get irritated with the celestial creator already. Not as if he hadn't always been somewhat miffed with a self-centred deity who had booked it and abandoned the Earth to go to figurative perdition. Somehow Dean had never really felt like God was HIS co-pilot.

"Second of all," continued Sam, more cautiously. "Second of all, we force him to, uh, slip inside ME."

Dean's jaw dropped. No way could Sam be seriously suggesting he surrender himself to be a vessel. Not again. And not for the biggest enchilada of them all.

"No way!" he objected, forcefully. "No way in Hell are you gonna be a vessel for some douchy divinity. Nearly lost you for good the last time. We are so NOT going down that road again."

But Sam wasn't easily dissuaded. He could be as stubborn as a mule when he had the bit between his teeth. He held up his hands.

"It's the ONLY way, Dean. And it'd only be for the minimum time. OK?"

"One freakin' second would be too long," grumbled Dean. "Chuck was a headcase, remember? This mook could seriously fry your marbles."

He had overheard with disgust Sam and Joe's conversation about his dementing visitations on Chuck Shurley. Benevolent or not it had killed the poor sad guy in the end. Sam wasn't deterred.

"I know it. But, Dean, I'm an old hand at the vessel shtick, and I totally believe I'm strong enough. Strong enough with YOU beside me."

He placed his big hands on Dean's shoulders and forced him to look straight in his face. Sam's puppy-dog eyes were intense and sincere. Dean didn't stand a chance.

"Dude, this could even work. Wanna give it a try, Dean. There's a slim but real chance we could pull it off."

Dean ground his teeth. He knew they were up against it, that the human race couldn't last much longer the way things were. Maybe mankind deserved whatever sacrifice they would have to make. Damn shame it always had to be a Winchester at the sharp end.

"OK," he ground out. "But if it all goes south you're taking me along this time. Right, Sammy?"

"Sure, Dean," Sam eagerly assured him. "Gonna make that part of the deal. We're a team."

~o~

When they brought Joe Hoover around from the ancient Hebraic binding spell, he found himself tied to a chair with coils of rope plaited from pages they had ripped from a battered copy of the Hebrew Torah. Around him a wide circular trail of holy oil twinkled as it dripped between the tiles of the raised floor. Sam and Dean were looking down at him with grim expressions. Dean was holding his flint and steel firestarter in one hand and a twist of Bible paper in the other.

"Oh hi, boys," said Joe, cheerily. "Hadn't heard that old ditty in a long time. Kinda fun. What now?"

Dean growled. "Now we're thinking it's time for a little swap meet. Time to let Joe take a mental health day, huh? Let Sam here pick up the slack?"

Joe knitted his brows. "And why would I wanna do that?" he asked, genuinely confused.

Sam moved toward him, stepping over the circle of oil, and halted beside Joe's chair.

"Maybe it's time for a change of perspective?" he suggested.

He splayed his big hand across the old guy's forehead, his face registering a terrible intensity as he focused all the will Lucifer had honed dagger-sharp on the vessel's skull.

"Can't evict me that way," was Joe's nonchalant comment. "You don't have the muscle, son."

"No?" questioned Dean, archly. "But he HAS the 'muscle' to freakin' pulp whatever you've left of the real Joe Hoover."

Dean had full confidence in his brother's psychic wallop. He had seen it kill more than once, men far younger and fitter than Joe's grizzled host.

A look of great concern swept over the deity's face. He really did not want to lose his current favourite puppet. A puppet he generously regarded as his special pet, and friend.

"Very well," he conceded. "Boys, you win."

Sam relaxed for a moment and his brother took the opportunity to use his paper spill to light the holy oil around Sam and Joe.

"You sure about this, Sammy?" Dean asked one last time, as he stood up. "It's not too late..."

"Never more sure, Dean," Sam replied, flashing him a reassuring smile over the flames.

"You girls ready?" asked Joe and closed his eyes tight, opening his thin, bristly lips in an 'O'.

Luminous pure white smoke billowed out of his mouth and swirled about the two figures. Sam sank to his knees as it rushed over his teeth and filled his body with its smothering fumes, strongly redolent of incense and gopherwood. It curdled in his stomach with the skid-marks of Lucifer's soiled grace. Sam struggled not to upchuck on reflex. He crouched on the floor clutching his churning stomach.

When the air had cleared, Dean realized he was still holding the spill and shook it out right before it burned his fingers. The poor guy who had been Joe Hoover slumped on the chair he was bound to with a dazed and spacey look on his face, like he had drunk more strong liquor than his body could hold. Sam was kneeling, hands on the floor, forehead on his knees, still as death.

Dean was more than concerned. He was scared for him.

"Sam? Sammy?!" he yelled. "Sammy? You OK? Speak to me, Sammy!"

Sam stirred shakily and gradually uncurled. He tried an experimental cough and sat back on his heels.

"Dean? He-help me up, why doncha?"

Dean sprang forward to help his brother onto his wobbly feet.

"Hey," Sam said, chuckling. "You're way shorter than I thought. Feel like I'm up in the clouds here."

"Joe?" Dean anxiously asked. "My brother OK in there?"

"Sure, sure," answered Joe in Sam's voice. "The boy's fine in back. He knows how to play this game."

Sam had had enough experience of being driven by an archangel to know how to survive tucked in a safe corner of his own brain. Sharing his noodle with a god was something else, but he was hoping it had to run on the same rules, more or less.

Dean guided Joe to the couch and sat him down. Joe swung Sam's feet up and lay down full length, letting out a tired sigh.

"Guess I should leave you two guys alone together a while," Dean said, feeling superfluous. "I'll, uh... Guess I'll go find me a demon and invite Luci to the party."

Grabbing his jacket and keys, he left, giving his brother one last glance as he slammed the door behind him.

~o~

When Dean's noisy presence had left the room, the atmosphere grew strangely still. The only sound was the shallow wheeze of Joe's ex-vessel passed out in the chair he was still bound to. The effect was oddly restful.

Behind Sam's closed eyes, the bloodshot darkness gave way to a scene illuminated by a bright, pearlescent radiance. The humming in his ears sounded like a distant celestial choir chanting in chorus.

Sam found himself standing in a large chamber, similar to the inside of some Byzantine cathedral he had once seen on PBS. Before him stood a huge ivory throne adorned with an offensive amount of gold, upon which sat the towering figure of the Almighty. No longer the unassuming earthling Sam knew as Joe Hoover, he was now an indisputably Michelangelesque figure, curly-whiskered, long silver hair flowing, splendid in pure white robes. Sam was so small he barely came up to the divine ankles.

God stroked his long, silky beard and stared right ahead like he hadn't even noticed Sam. Sam looked down at himself. He was the boy Sammy, dressed in the clothes he had been wearing when he ran away from his family to find 'normal' and wound up in Flagstaff with a dog.

"I-" he began, but he halted when his words came out pitched high and thin, like a teen whose voice had yet to break. "Joe, I..."

Sam wasn't sure how he should address the deity in this new form. God turned his head and peered down at him imperiously. Slowly a warm smile spread over the ancient lines of his face.

"Ah, Sam," he boomed. "There you are."

He reached down and scooped Sam up in his enormous hand, placing the diminutive figure on his knee.

"This is cozy," he declared, chuckling indulgently.

Sam wasn't so sure about the coziness of the situation.

"Now we're all alone here in this handsome dome of yours, what shall we talk about, Sam my boy?"

Sam brushed the hair off of his face with one hand, forgetting that his kid hair was shorter.

"Uh... Got a confession to make," he began.

Seemed like the obvious opening, in the circumstances.

God pouted. "I get a lot of that. But it's what I'm here for, I guess."

"Somehow I always figured a sympathetic ear is kinduva basic requirement, god-wise," commented Sam, sharply.

God's eyebrows rose. This guy had the nerve to try to teach him his job, huh?

"OK," he said, settling back to listen. "We're here now. So let me have it."

Sam cleared his throat and inhaled, searching for the right words.

"I'm not much of a Sunday churchgoer," he admitted.

"You don't say?" murmured God, smirking into his beard.

That got him the stinkeye from Sam. So he hushed up, waving his hand to indicate that Sam should go on.

"My dad didn't bring me up that way. I guess he lost his faith when he lost Mom. But he believed in something. Family. And I tried - I tried so hard - but I let him down. That's what I do. I let people down."

"You're being too hard on yourself," said God.

But Sam wasn't listening. He was in full flow, his boyish voice rising in intensity.

"Nothing I EVER did turned out the way I wanted. I never wanted to hurt anyone but somehow they got hurt. And the people I cared about the most, Jess, Dad, Dean, they got hurt the worst. I've been a burden to everyone, a dead weight, a freakin' failure. They trusted me and I betrayed their trust every damn time."

God tut-tutted. He hated to see one of his flock so unjustly down on themselves. And he noticed that Sam's eyes were beginning to fill as he staggered on.

"I am SO sorry. I called my dad a self-righteous, monomaniac prick who didn't care a crap about his kids, to his face, and he freakin' DIED before I could take it back. And Dean? Dean went to HELL for me, and I STILL dissed him and let him down. He TOLD me not to say yes to Lucifer and I HAD to know better. I betrayed him and I broke his goddamn HEART."

"Dean's heart isn't damned," commented God. "Shattered, yes, but not damned."

Sam glanced up at God. He couldn't be sure whether the deity was mocking him or not, but he plowed on regardless.

"And the kicker is, he STILL has faith in me. After everything I've done he still believes I can come through for him. I've been such an ungrateful freak. 'Cause he's the only one that does, time and again. I can't - I won't - fail him another time."

"You're not perfect," said God, wisely. "I didn't want mankind to be perfect. I wanted you to succeed DESPITE your imperfections."

"No," Sam agreed. "We're not perfect. We try and we fail. We reach too far and we fall short. But it's not because we don't make the effort. It's because we hafta strain too damn hard and the bar is set too damn high. And we don't even get credit for trying."

"We?" asked God, suspiciously. "You're not talking about you and your brother now, are you?"

Sam ignored the question and went on.

"We made a mistake. We thought we weren't kids anymore, that we could make our own choices, do it our way. We got too sure of ourselves. We got stupid. And we paid the price. It didn't feel like it was fair. What we did wrong we did wrong because we hurt. But now we've served our time. Do we hafta go on paying forever? I think we learned our lesson. We just wanna come home."

"Who are you talking about now?" God demanded. "You? Or Lucifer? Lucifer defied me!"

Sam tried not to tremble and lose his foothold on God's knee as the deity shuddered with anger.

"You DARE to speak for him?!" thundered God.

"He was in my head," Sam reminded him. "I felt his pain. And - Dean would kill me for this but - I saw his point, kinda."

Even Sam found it hard to believe that he could feel sympathy for the devil but he had had a ringside seat to the working of that monstrous psyche for so long. He couldn't help but identify.

"Lucifer was your son, Joe. Your SON. And he was everything you wanted him to be until he acted out ONE time. You turned your back on him, exiled him to that prison you built for him and called Hell. He was your son! I know how that feels, if you don't. You never HAD a father. I had."

God's face had turned stony and his eyes were averted from the tiny human before him. Sam was seriously scared that he would be smitten at any moment. But then...

But then he noticed a silvery glimmer as a single tear rolled down the Almighty's wrinkled cheek. Maybe the old guy's reputation as the paradigm of compassion was more than ecclesiastic hype. Sam hoped it was no lie.

"He was my favourite," God said. "But he was head-strong, not like his brother Michael. Michael was always such a good boy, always called me 'Sir', ate up his vegetables, tidied his room. Shame about that stick up his butt. I couldn't help but love my wayward Lucifer just a little more."

God gave a little sob and sniffed like a walrus.

"I only wanted him to apologize," he quavered, his voice tremulous with emotion. "He has NEVER apologized."

"Have you let him?" asked Sam, quietly. "Were you ever listening?"

God wiped the tear from his face with his sleeve and sighed.

"You know you were never alone in Flagstaff. I was with you."

"You were?" asked Sam, not entirely believing it. He remembered feeling dreadfully alone.

"You do know 'dog' is 'God' backward, right?" God gave him a wink.

Sam shook his head. Whatever, his argument was spent. He had to hope that the great and ancient deity before him would live up to his fame as a benevolent being who heeded the prayers of his supplicants. But Sam knew, as Lucifer had commented, no one could force God to do a damn thing he didn't want to do. All he could do was cross his fingers and pray.

Then God coughed hoarsely.

"Sorry," he said, but in a small voice this time.

Because it wasn't God THIS time.

Sam opened his eyes and blinked. He was back in the real world, laying in Dean's apartment, in what remained of Detroit. Then there was another cough. It came from Joe Hoover, or whatever his real name used to be. He had come around, and was now scared and pulling weakly on his Pentateuchal restraints.

"What goin' on, eh?" he demanded, in a frightened voice with a faintly Canadian accent. "Who stole my personal Messiah?"

TBC

* * *

A/N: One more chapter to come. 


	11. Face-off

A/N: The final part. Now we return to the scene of the confrontation between the celestial big boys.

* * *

Love Me Again (Part 11: Face-off) by frostygossamer

* * *

Back at the overpass, "Ah," said Lucifer.

A gale had blown up out of nowhere and clouds began to scud across the sky like woolly sheep before the wolf. The previously bright heavens turned suddenly dark and lowering. Sam stood there, legs apart, arms spread wide, like he was orchestrating the whole thing.

He was.

Lucifer leaned into the wind like the prow of a battleship.

"What is the meaning of this, Father?" he yelled. "Why have you come here? To taunt me?"

"Lucifer my son," Sam's voice resonated like mountain thunder, "I have come to show you my beneficence."

Lucifer snarled. "Beneficence, Father? Is that all you have for me? After eons in a cage of your making, forged by your own hand. Eons without hope. Eons of enmity."

He turned angrily on Dean and roared, "If this turns out to be some Winchester trick you WILL pay for it in a thousand painful ways. Hear my words."

Dean stood fast. "Listen to him."

"You were never cut off from my love," declared God, his voice gentle. "My love is infinite."

His arms were now held out toward Lucifer in a gesture of acceptence.

"You built me my own prison, Father," Lucifer reminded him, dryly.

"But I never ceased to love you."

Lucifer grimaced. "And you showed me that, oh so well."

"It was intended as a lesson," insisted God. "No more."

"Really? Now you tell me," snapped the fallen angel.

"There was always a simple solution," God reminded him.

"Beg you for my freedom?" Lucifer growled. "Never!"

God glowered. "You were always too proud."

The two beings were locking horns again like a pair of rival stags, neither prepared to ever back down. So alike that neither of them could see it. Blind to any way out of the vicious circle of conflict.

"PEACE!" That was Sam's safe word.

The younger Winchester was taking over control of his body again.

Sam had spend so many sleepless nights going over and over the quarrels he had had with his own dad, before he left for Stanford. He wouldn't stand by and see Lucifer and the Almighty repeat the same mistakes that young men and their fathers have echoed throughout countless generations. Regret had taught him what he should have said, too late for himself but still not too late for Lucifer.

Lucifer had turned away from his god in anger. He was crazy but Sam knew he was also tired beyond words.

"I loved you, Father," he muttered. "But you loved Man so much more."

Sam stepped up behind him, gently placed his hand on the archangel's shoulder and voiced the words he had heard God speak in his heart.

"Man was my work but YOU are my family, Helel."

"Way to screw up the work-life balance," thought Dean.

Lucifer was a little surprised to hear God utter that old name with Sam's mouth, his father's own name for him, all but forgotten.

"I am STILL family," he said.

Sam smiled, his charming dimples making an appearance. And he felt God smile inside him, grateful to Sam for stopping them before they hurt each other again.

"Yes," agreed God, as Sam gave him back the helm. "You are."

Lucifer exhaled, suddenly weary of it all, and demanded, "What is this 'deal'?"

God motioned for the crossroads demon to approach with the Winchesters' parchment. Lucifer snatched it from him and gave it a cursory once-over. The contract was brief and to the point.

Written in ancient Enochian, it translated as: "I'm sorry."

At the bottom of the scroll was a space for Lucifer's signature.

"Sign it and come home, my son," God said behind him. "Michael has your old room, but I'll make him switch. I promise."

Lucifer let out a choked breath and nodded slowly. "I will take your deal, Father."

Sliding a knife from his belt he opened a vein in his vessel's wrist and jabbed the sharpened talon of his index finger into the flow of blood. Using the demon's back as an writing board, he made his mark at the bottom of the parchment with a bold flourish of carmine.

Immediately he advanced on Sam and grabbed his chin in one powerful fist. Without ado, he slammed their mouths together in a deal-sealing kiss. A kiss that honoured his father. A kiss that evidenced his genuine submission to God. The ultimate true love's kiss that had the power to seal any contract, break any curse, right any wrong and save any soul. Even Lucifer's. Even Sam's.

As he did so he pushed the signed contract into Sam's hand.

Dean took a deep, shaky breath and held it as his Sam and the monster-truck Lucifer collided. To Dean it looked like Lucifer was trying to devour the shorter Sasquatch. Every fibre of his being needed to run to his brother and peel the evil sonuvabitch off of him. But, before his panic could betray him, the pair broke.

Lucifer smiled. Actually goddamn smiled! It was ridiculously benign and, for one second, utterly beautiful.

And then...

A pure white light, like nothing seen before on Earth, deluged the scene, as both heavenly beings shed their vessels and headed up toward home. Dean shielded his eyes with his arm and staggered two steps backward.

"What the...?!" he growled.

His vision whited out in the blaze of brightness. When he regained his sight, both discarded husks lay crumpled on the ground, disregarded like the empty skins of sloughing serpents.

"Sam!"

Dean ignored the empty hull of Lucifer's vessel, never a living being in it's own right, and ran to his motionless brother.

"Sammy! Jeez! No!" he cried. "For God's sake, say something. Sammy!"

Sam's body was lifeless. Dean dove to his knees and pulled his brother's limp form into his lap, tenderly cradling his big floppy head.

"No!" he yelled to the sky. "No. It was NOT gonna be this way."

Nobody, not even God had the right to take Dean's Sammy away and leave him behind. Not again. He started to cry, openly and bravely for once. Because now there was no one left to see, no one he gave a cuss about. The tears welled up in his eyes and cascaded down his cheeks, dropping one by one onto his baby brother's upturned face. Dean didn't care. He had nothing left to care with.

Bitterly, he muttered, "Damn you, Joe Hoover."

Then suddenly the dark clouds overhead parted, shafts of sunshine shooting through to light up the blacktop beneath. An enormous hand hung down, its fingers loosely curled and its forefinger pointed directly at the Winchesters. It was the right hand of God.

Lightning flashed from the divine digit, singeing Dean's hair and striking Sam directly on the forehead. He convulsed once in Dean's arms and for a moment was still again, before his eyelids flew open and he began to choke. Dean hugged him tighter.

"It's OK. It's fine, Sam. You're back. You're OK."

Sam struggled to sit and Dean helped him into a more upright position.

"Jeez," Sam gasped, rubbing a big hand over his face.

It came away wet and he looked at it askance.

"Sure you're gonna blub," said Dean, quickly. "Dude, you nearly bought it."

Dean tried casually to wipe his face dry on the shoulder of his jacket, but he was too late. Sam had plainly seen the tracks of his brother's tears. As the clouds drifted together over their heads, Dean thought he could almost hear a deep, distant belly laugh drift down from the heavens.

"C'mon," he said, standing up and helping Sam to his feet. "Time we were outta here."

~o~

They drove back to Dean's apartment, God's ex-vessel still propped up on the backseat of the pickup bemused by the whole affair.

When they got there, Sam hesitated before getting down from the truck.

"So. What're we gonna do about him?" he asked Dean, nodding toward the old guy. "Can't leave him out on the sidewalk."

Dean agreed. "I'm gonna take him up to Trish's place. She and Patti'll look after him. Not much chance he's gotten anyone left in Canada anyways. The ladies could do with some help around the place. They can make like family."

"Sounds like an idea," Sam agreed.

After calling in at Trish's place, they wasted no time heading up to the penthouse. Soon as they had gotten inside they collapsed in a couple chairs feeling like they had worked a ten hour shift down a coal mine.

"Liked it way better when all we had to do was gank a couple fuglies and then go prop up a bar someplace," griped Dean. "Remember? Honest work."

Sam grinned and chuckled, wincing slightly with the effort. He rubbed his temples with his finger tips and exhaled tiredly.

"You hurting anyplace?" Dean was quick to ask. "If that sonuvabitch damaged anything, I'll-"

"I'm good, Dean," Sam interrupted him. "Little achy, is all. Guess I got away pretty clean this time. In fact, you know what I'd totally love right now?" He was grinning.

"What?" Dean propped his feet on the arm of the couch.

"A shower. A long-ass shower. With plenty soapy lather and real hot water. Wash away this Odour of Sanctity."

"Oh?" responded Dean, catching on. "And it so happens we got ourselves holy hot water and plenty soap."

If Dean had nothing else to thank God for he had at least fixed his water heater. Although only God knew what the heck it was using for power. Shucking off their clothes, they both made for the bathroom.

Sam went straight in the shower cubicle and turned on the faucet. Testing the water temperature, he picked up the soap. A moment of doubt struck Dean as he stood with his hand on the doorknob.

"Maybe we shouldn't be doing this," he said, uncertainly. "Isn't it kinda, uh... wrong?"

Sam turned around and gave him a look of sheer disbelief.

"You're gonna stand there buck naked and try to sell me a line about what's right and what's wrong? Me who had the freakin' Light of God enter his heart not two hours ago? Dude, you don't think he woulda said something, huh?"

Dean weighed that up. "Don't think old Joe seriously gave a cuss."

"Exactly," said Sam, grabbing his wrist and dragging him inside the cubicle. "Somehow I'm thinking he's gonna have more important sins on his mind right now without messing with us."

Dean had to agree that there was one hell of a lot more wrong with the world than what was promising to happen in that shower, so he decided to let it go and join in with his brother.

"Was only gonna say-" he began.

"Shut up," cut in Sam, reaching his arms around his brother's back to lather him up with soap.

After a couple seconds he realized that Dean was actually kind of snuggling up against him, his cheek resting on his broad shoulder.

Sam paused. "We're good now, right?" he asked.

"Sure are," answered Dean, his words indistinct against Sam's skin.

"No," snapped Sam, pushing him away a little to look in his face. "I mean, we're good now, about everything? Me saying yes to Luci. The Apocalypse. Everything I said to you that turned out bullcrap. Everything you told me and had totally right. Everything?"

Dean met his eyes squarely. "We're still family." Like that trumped everything else.

Sam was unimpressed by Dean's mantra. He turned off the faucet and stood there dripping.

"Not what I need to hear," he retorted, sharply.

He was aware that everything he had tried to do, everything he had failed at, finding 'normal', doing Stanford, trying to stop the Apocalypse and save the world, had pretty much meant stomping all over his family and their expectations, what they stood for. He needed more than a blind eye from Dean.

Dean's eyes narrowed like he was actually working hard to figure out what Sam was getting at, and coming up with zip.

"Dunno what you want me to say, Sam. You know I'm all about family."

Sam exhaled. "Dean, I don't want you to forgive me 'cause I'm a Winchester, 'cause I'm your brother, 'cause you owe me or 'cause it's your goddamn duty. Damn it, I let you down and I know it. All I need is for you to tell me you can still find it in your heart to let me off the hook."

"Off the hook?" Dean seemed genuinely perplexed. "What freakin' hook?"

"I don't measure up to Dad, Dean. I know it and I know I never will."

Dean scoffed. "Dad? Hell, Dad was no saint, Sammy."

"He was in YOUR eyes."

That knocked Dean back a little. He couldn't deny it. But he couldn't have his baby brother believing he actually cared about all that crap he had said. So he turned the faucet back on.

"See that sudsy water running down the freakin' drain? That's all it amounts to, Sam. Do you seriously think you'd still even BE here with me if I gave a rat's ass?"

Sam seemed a little surprised, which only annoyed Dean some more.

"I forgave you, dammit!" he snapped. "Unconditionally. Like always. Deal with it."

His brother stared at him open-mouthed until Dean pulled him closer, their naked bodies aligning.

"C'mere." The steamy hot water cascaded over the both of them, washing them clean and new. "We need. To start. Again."

~o~

Later that night, Sam was sitting on his butt in their window cleaner's cradle balcony looking out over Motown. He was watching the pitch black cloud of damned souls fleeing from the pinnacle of the demon HQ tower downtown, taking off for wherever. Lucifer's return to his father's house meant he no longer had a use for them. If they wanted to remain unsmitten they all needed to find a rock to hide under, pronto.

News had spread rapidly through what remained of the hunter underground. Detroit, what there was left of it, was under human control again.

Though his eyes stayed fixed on the tower, Sam noted the dip of the cradle, as his brother climbed in it through the window, and the chink of glass right by to his ear. He turned his head to find Dean offering him an opened beer.

"Where'd this come from?" he asked in some amazement, taking the cold bottle from him.

"Last two of a 6-pack I traded for, uh, something."

Dean gave Sam's knee a firm squeeze as he flopped down beside him with his own beer, casually leaving his hand there.

"Traded for what?" wondered Sam. "Not...?" He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively.

He wasn't sure if he was joshing. The idea still disturbed him a little. Dean was his. Hadn't he a right to feel proprietorial toward him?

"Hell no," snapped his brother, maybe too quickly. Whatever that meant.

Dean knocked the top off of his bottle and took a big swallow. Letting out a deep sigh of contentment, he lay back against the wall and relaxed, rubbing his thumb over Sam's kneecap affectionately. He could do that now.

Sam sipped his beer and shrugged. The past was the past, and so was what they had had to do to survive. Now that he had claimed Dean back physically, there would be no more swapping favours for any-damn-thing, whether beer or faked compassion. Dean was his again. No one would have a piece of him but Sam.

That was as it should be.

"You had a long-ass rap session with the Almighty," commented Dean. "Everything cool?"

That was his way of asking if Sam's coconut was now even more messed up than before. Sam considered a moment. The firestorm inside his head had subsided majorly since he had let God stop over. Seems the big guy was a tidy guest.

"Maybe, I guess. By the way, he said he was my dog, back in Flagstaff."

"Bones?" asked Dean. Sam was surprised he remembered. "It figures."

"It figures how, exactly?"

"Dude, 'God' is 'dog' backward. Any kindergartener coulda told you that."

Sam hated when his brother made with the smug put down.

"Uh-huh? And also he was the 'God' in Godzilla," he ad-libbed snarkily, co-opting Dean's favourite movie monster. "Apparently the clue's in the name."

"Oh sure," dismissed Dean.

He hadn't gotten this far without knowing when Sam was razzing him.

Sam huffed and drained his beer. "Patti and Trish OK?"

He didn't go in with Dean when he had called by with 'Joe'. Dean gave a nod.

"They're fine. And I'm guessing, now Skuld's finally gotten her message across, she'll be leaving Patti alone to mend."

That reminded Sam of something he had wanted to ask Dean.

"So what was it Skuld said to you again? Her prophecy?"

"Not a prophecy," objected Dean. "Just more of their doublespeak bullcrap."

Sam gave him a questioning eyebrow. "Yeah...?"

Dean shifted his butt to get more comfortable on the hard cradle floor.

"She said- And this was as she lay there breathing her freakin' last. She said some crap on the lines of 'Remember it shall rise from the ashes' or some other dumb-ass, starry-eyed hogwash."

"Ah, I see." Sam nodded to himself.

Dean took another swig of his beer and shot him a narrow-eyed glare.

"Ah, you see WHAT?" he demanded.

"So that's why you came to Detroit," Sam elaborated. "Thought that was kinduva coincidence."

Dean didn't follow his logic at all.

"The hell are you jabbering about, Sam? Me fetching up in this goddamn place was nothing to do with Skuld."

"Oh yeah? 'Cause, what she said, it's from the motto of the City of Detroit. Uh, 'Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus' I think it was, um, IS, I guess. Roughly, 'We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes'. Freaky, huh?"

Damn! And Dean had been so convinced the dying Wyrd Sister had been talking out of her ass. He stared at his nerd brother blankly for a beat.

"Didn't know that," he had to admit.

"No?" Sam shrugged it off. "Then I guess we were just fated to meet up again, ya think?"

Dean cursed inwardly. "I guess," he allowed and took a final swallow. "Maybe I shoulda given the old dame some credit, after all."

"Guess so," agreed Sam.

Who would have thought Skuld had been telling Dean that he would find the final hope of Man in Detroit? And that it would be Sam, HIS treasure beyond price, lost but destined to be found when the world, and his brother, needed him most? Not Dean apparently.

"We could stick around a while and help with the reconstruction?" Sam suggested.

"Or we could jump in that pickup and head out for the Rockies," countered Dean. "I hear some of the National Parks are mostly untouched. Nothing there for the demon hordes to screw with. Good place to start over?"

"Hmm," agreed Sam. He could have guessed Dean would soon be itching to get mobile. "Great place to plant wheat maybe?" he suggested.

Dean knew what Sam was getting at. Some day there might even be pie again. He could dream now. He took a moment to conjure up a slice of steaming home-baked apple pie a la mode.

"Dude, tell me again what happened to the Impala," Sam asked.

Dean knew fine and dandy that he never had told Sam what he had done with the Impala after they had gone their separate ways. He decided it was time to come clean.

"Drove her into a freakin' wall, Sam."

Sam's mouth hung open. "Jeez, Dean, you coulda gotten yourself killed."

Dean inhaled deeply. "Yep. That was the idea."

"So where is she?"

Sam couldn't believe that his brother's baby was laying all smashed up to hell in a ditch someplace.

Dean laughed. "Don't worry, Sam. She's safe. Bricked her up in the freakin' basement."

"And you're not gonna fix her up? Dude, I'd help."

Dean didn't doubt it. With Sam at his side again, there was a good chance ANYTHING could be fixed.

He stood up and held out his hand. Sam was glad to see that trademark naughty smirk once again lighting up his face.

"C'mon, Sammy. Time for bed."

Tomorrow could be the beginning of a new world.

The End

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed my little tale. :) 


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